Writer’s Walk on Circular Quay
Set in the promenade of Sydney’s Circular Quay are a series of round metal plaques. These run round the quay and feature a number of famous (and not so famous) Australian writers and some non-Australian writers known for their strong Aussie connections. Each writer featured has been given a few lines of their own work to sum up their thoughts on Australia. Some are serious, some poignant and some funny.
These are the manhole covers for Barrie Humphries, Clive James, Robert Louis Stevenson, Charles Darwin, Nevil Shute, AB Banjo Patterson, Rudyard Kipling, Mark Twain, Jack London, Kenneth Slessor and Germaine Greer.
Barry Humphries
I think that I could never spy
A poem as lovely as a pie
A banquet in a single course
Blushing with rich tomato sauce
(Neglected Poems and Other Creatures, 1991)
Clive James
In Sydney Harbour… the yachts will be racing on the cruched diamond water under a sky the texture of powered sapphires. It would be churlish not to concede that the same abundance of natural blessings which gave us the energy to leave has energy right to call us back. (Unreliable Memoirs, 1980)
Robert Louis Stevenson
…there is material for a dozen buccaneering stories to be picked up in the hotels at Circular Quay.
Charles Darwin
This is really a wonderful colony; ancient Rome in her Imperial grandeur, would not have been ashamed of such an offspring. (Letter from Charles Darwin, 1836)
Nevil Shute
“It’s a funny thing,” Jean said. “You go to a new country, and you expect everything to be different, and then you find there’s such a lot that stays the same.” (A Town Like Alice, 1950)
A.B. ‘Banjo’ Paterson
It’s grand to be an unemployed
And lie in the Domain.
And wake up every second day -
And go to sleep again.
(It’s Grand, 1902)
Rudyard Kipling
Sydney… was populated by leisured multitudes all in their shirt-sleeves and all picnicking all the day. They volunteered that they were new and young, but would do wonderful things someday. (Something of Myself, 1937)
Mark Twain
Australian history is almost always picturesque, indeed it is so curious and strange, that it is itself the chiefest novelty the country has to offer. It does not read like history, but like the most beautiful lies. And all of a fresh sort, not mouldy old stale ones. It is full of surprises, and adventures, and incongruities, and incredibilities, but they are all true, they all happened. (Following the Equator, 1897)
Jack London
I would rather be ashes than dust,
a spark burnt out in a brilliant blaze,
than be stifled in dry rot…
For man’s chief purpose is to live,
not to exist;
I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them;
I shall use my time.
(South Sea Tales, 1911)
Kenneth Slessor
The red globes of light, the liquor-green,
The pulsing arrows and the running fire
Spilt on the stones, go deeper than a stream;
You find this ugly, I find it lovely.
Ghosts’ trousers, like the dangle of hung men,
In pawnshop windows, bumping knee by knee,
But none inside to suffer or condem;
You find this ugly, I find it lovely.
(William Street, 1929)
Germaine Greer
Australia is my birthplace but I cannot call it my own as well as my native land, for I have no right to live there. Until a treaty is agreed with the original inhabitants, I shall be homeless in the world. (Journal of the Plague Year, 1988)
