Picnic At Hanging Rock Quotes
"A surprising number of human beings are without purpose. Although it’s probable, of course, that they are performing some necessary function unknown to themselves."
"Everything if only you could see it clearly enough, is beautiful and complete – the ragged nest, Marion’s torn muslin skirts fluted like a nautilus shell, Irma’s ringlets framing her face in exquisite wiry spirals – even Edith, flushed and childishly vulnerable in sleep."
"The very sight of a sheet of paper dotted over with numerals gave her a secret joy; a sense of power, knowing how with a stroke or two of a pencil they could be sorted out, divided, multiplied, re-arranged to miraculous new conclusions."
"The splendid spectacle, as if by special arrangement between Heaven and the Head Mistress of Appleyard College, was brilliantly illuminated for their inspection."
"Nobody but an idiot ever seems to want to sit still for a change!"
"A knowledge of arithmetic don’t help much in the Bush."
"Who can say how many or how few of its unfolding marvels are actually seen, selected and recorded by the four pairs of eyes now fixed in staring wonder at the Hanging Rock?"
"It’s no use, Mrs Appleyard. I can’t learn them."
"She loved people and things to be beautiful, and pinned a bunch of wildflowers into her coat with as much pleasure as a breathtaking diamond brooch."
"I’ve known people with shocking memories turn into quite useful witnesses once they get back to where they started, so to speak."
"Like blue lace, thought Mademoiselle, wondering how anything so beautiful could be the instrument of evil."
"My feet were hurting and I didn’t pay much attention."
"None of the other teachers are such a peculiar shape."
"One could hardly toss their letters into the wastepaper basket as one could the offer, with stamped envelope enclosed, to find the missing girls with a patent magnet."
"However, Sara’s fees were always promptly paid by an elderly guardian whose private address was never divulged."
"Insects! What in the name of Heaven had happened on Saturday afternoon?"
"The whole family had been staying at St Kilda during the Christmas holidays, but had returned last month to the luxurious isolation of Goonawingi."
"Mike’s all right. Him and me are mates."
"You may be a bloody fool at times, but you can handle that pony all right."
"He slept deep and fitfully anywhere, like a dog."
"Painfully he unwound his long pin-striped legs from under the rustic seat."
"The fact is, we left it a bit late starting for home and Mr Michael reckoned he’d stay the night at the Macedon Arms."
"Ah, they’re pretty birds all right, them swans."
"Out at the Hanging Rock the long violet shadows were tracing their million-year-old pattern of summer evenings."
"He told her: ‘All of us trying to make this girl remember may have got her more bamboozled than ever.'"
"Mrs Appleyard’s task this morning was the odious and infinitely more dangerous one of writing to inform the parents of Miranda and Irma Leopold and the legal guardian of Marion Quade that all three girls and a governess had mysteriously disappeared from the Hanging Rock."
"There were no signs of a struggle, or any violence."
"Sometimes I feel as if I was hundreds of years old."
"It’s not right, in my view, that a respectable young woman like Dora should be connected in any way whatsoever with crime and all that sort of thing."
"The boarders were quiet and orderly, if not particularly hungry."
"Life at the College without Mam’selle’s endearing presence would be unsupportable."
"I don’t wish you to think I am complaining . . . but you can’t open a paper nowadays without reading something about all this business."
"There was a note in the post from Constable Bumpher saying that he had nothing fresh to report."
"The child Sara’s little peaked face is illumined, even in sleep, by a dream of Miranda so filled with love and joy."
"When I was a child I always thought whisky was some kind of remedy for toothache."
"I reckon I could easy get a job on one of them big runs."
"I was bloody well dead asleep. Had a big Saturday."
"A young chap by the name of Hon. Fitzhubert saved her life. Not me."
"You could have knocked me down with a feather."
"It’s Miranda, Mam’selle. No, don’t laugh. Please!"
"I can’t walk out on your Uncle and the horses unless I got someone to suit him at Lake View."
"Nothing in life was really watertight, nothing secret, nothing secure."
"She says, 'Good-bye, Bertie. I’ve come a long way to see you and now I must go.'"
"I have always been an indifferent sleeper. What time is it? I forgot to wind my clock last night."