QUOTESPg 26 Narration of Lester and Oriel:‘Lester and Oriel Lamb are Godfearing people.’ ‘Let your light so shine.’ ‘Lester Lamb polices like her farms, always a little behind the moment. He’d quit the force if only his wife’d let him. Around toen he known as ‘lest We Forget’ and if he knew, it’d break his Anzac heart.’

QUOTESPg 26 Narration of Lester and Oriel: ‘Lester and Oriel Lamb are Godfearing people.’ ‘Let your light so shine.’ ‘Lester Lamb polices like her farms, always a little behind the moment. He’d quit the force if only his wife’d let him. Around toen he known as ‘lest We Forget’ and if he knew, it’d break his Anzac heart.’

QUOTESPg. 27‘They call him Quick because he is as unquick as his father.’

“He was a fairskinned, mlenacholy boy, slim and a little cagey around the ribs but robust in his own way.” Narrative, about Quick Lamb, pg 137

“Sam whistled and the couple laughed, but Lester went prickly with embarrassment” page 100

QUOTES-“The river. Remember, wherever the river goes every living creature which swarms will live, and there will be many fish, for this water goes there, that the waters of the sea will become fresh; so everything will live where the river goes.” Narrator→Fish P179- “Your time will come, Fish, you’ll have a second of knowing, a man for a moment, and then it won’t matter because you’ll be me, free to come and go, free to puzzle and long and love, free of the net of time.” Narrator→Fish P179

Quick and Oriel: ““Jesus, I hate this family stuff.  It makes me sick! I don’t need all this.” “It’s all we have.” “What?” “Each other.”” Pg. 267

Quick to Oriel: ““Let’s face it, Mum,” he said, suddenly reckless with courage, “you do everything better than anybody.  It’s just that you’re flaming bossy.”” Pg. 269

 “They kept clear of Cloudstreet, though at night Quick often lay awake thinking about it.” Page 328, Narrator about Quick.

“Fish Lamb clumps the piano, but all that comes from it is the thick unending drone of middle C and he’s not pleased. He knows the sound of his own music, and this is not it.” Narrator about Fish, page 335

It does you good to be tenants. It reminds you of your won true position in the world... A house should be a home, a privilege, not a possession. It's foolish to get attached. Oriel to Sam. Page 410

You might say I've come to love this awful old house. It was here for us when we had nothin. Oriel to Sam. Page 410

Lookit the water! The water! Fish yells. Lookthewater! Ah Hurry, Quick . The water. Fish to Quick. Page 415

And a hesitation, a pause for a few moments. I'm a man for that long, I feel my manhood, I recognise myself whole and human, know my story for just that long, long enough to see how we've come, how we've all battled in the same corridor that time makes for us, and I'm Fish Lamb for those seconds it takes to die, as long as it takes to drink the river, a long as it took to tell you all this, and then walls are tipping and I burst into the moon, sun and stars of who I really am. Being Fish Lamb. Perfectly. Always. Everyplace. Me. Page 424

Pg. 10 Narration of Oriel ‘She was a simple, clean, gloomy woman, much younger than her husband.’

“Lester, he doesn’t see me” – Oriel Lamb to Lester Lamb", Page 66

“He’s retarded. It’s like he’s three. We had to potty train him again, start from scratch” – Oriel Lamb to the Doctor, page 67

“My father remarried after my mother died. His new wife already had a boy” – Oriel to Quick (71) “When I got burnt one day in a bushfire, in 1910, he killed his last pig, and took out its bladder and put it on my legs to heal the blisters. A whole beast, just so I wouldn’t scar. Not only it was his last pig, it was the last living thing on his farm but me” – Oriel to Quick (72)

1.       “I’m similar and you know it. I’m an old fool and I don’t care at all. I just wish I knew what to believe in.” Lester Lamb. (pg.229)

“Families aren’t things you believe in, they’re things you work with.” Oriel Lamb. (pg.232)

Oriel had lost power over him long ago, a defeat that you could read in her face every time fish came shambling by.’ (Quick thinking about Fish, pg 299)

“‘Go home, says the black man. This isn’t your home. Go home to your home, mate...Go home.’ (Black man to Quick) Quick turns. Already he’s alone.” Page 362

Lester Lamb

Oriel Lamb

Quick Lamb

Fish Lamb