"'It's rather like a Poe story, isn't it,' said Patrick luxuriously, unfocusing his eyes. 'A person sees the chance of a better life passing by, and he makes as if to call out' - he flung one arm in the imploring gesture of a soul in torment - 'but something in his nature makes him hesitate. He pauses ... he closes his lips ... he steps back ... and then he slides down, and down, and down.'"

“'The devil's everywhere,' he said. 'Not just at Brunswick one day and somewhere else the next. He's everywhere.'”

“The rain began again. It fell heavily, easily, with no meaning or intention but the fulfilment of its own nature, which was to fall and fall.”

“Ideas came swarming through her, and like many people who labour in the obsession of solitude, she lacked the detachment to challenge them.”

“'Crap,' said Janet. 'He was a whinger and he wrote it down. That's not poetry.'”

“'Course I care. I always care. But there's no point in making a song and dance about it, like that night he stayed here. Know something? There's only one thing that'll bring 'em back, and that's indifference. The one thing you can't fake.'”

“And always Melbourne, Melbourne, Melbourne, over and over the same photo in glaring greens and reds, of a tram, huffy, blunderous, manoeuvring itself with pole akimbo round the tight corner where Bourke Street enters Spring.”