Richard Flanagan Quotes

I think of doing a series as very hard work. But then I've talked to coal miners, and that's really hard work.

I spent thirty-two years in a paper mill in southern Ohio, and before that, I worked in a meatpacking plant and a shoe factory.

When I had jobs, I was always doing manual jobs because I couldn't think. I worked at the docks, unloading trucks, and did ridiculous jobs.

I would much prefer to be a judge than a coal miner because of the absence of falling coal.

Social Security was designed to give a few years of modest benefits to people whose bodies were worn out through coal mining, factory work and other physically demanding labor.

Don't be condescending to unskilled labor. Try it for a half a day first.

I was a manual labourer. I figured out really early on that the value of my life could be determined by my hourly rate as a manual labourer digging holes.

People say writing is really hard. That's very unfair to those who are doing real jobs. People who work in the fields or fix roofs, engineers, or car mechanics. I think lying on your back working under an oily car, that's a job.

My first job was washing dishes in the basement of a nursing home for $2.10 an hour, and I learned as much about the value of hard work there as I ever did later.

I've earned my living in all sorts of terrible ways - as a janitor, a copy editor, a psychotherapist.

I reject the idea that any job is too hard or too dirty for American workers to do. American workers just expect and demand to be paid a decent wage.

We say, pay talent well and genius generously, but pay well also the arm that toils; pay the needle, the saw, the spade, the hoe, the mop.

A lot of what we do at Fox is blue-collar stuff.

It's man's work. My dad was gone at 4:30 in the morning and home at 8 at night, and he worked underground, and the last mine he worked in was 26 inches high in a lot of places. He liked the engineering of it - he liked the moving the earth and being able to extract something and put it back for reclamation. He enjoyed the whole process.

Wal-Mart creates entry level jobs for people who don't have a lot of skills; those jobs don't pay a lot.

The coal miners are working. But there's more than just coal miners in West Virginia.

Before breaking into music, I had various jobs: forklift driver, driving a courier. But I was forced into working rather than doing it off my own bat because that was my dad's way: you got a job and paid your way.

I've worked in a factory. I was a garbage man. I worked in a post office. It's not that long ago. I like to think that I'm just a regular guy.

I class myself as a manual laborer.

The physical lot of … workers had notably improved, with unemployment insurance, social security, and the new health services, while their children's school education was assured by the government-operated schools: in addition, they had, for intellectual or emotional stimulus and diversion, the radio and the television. But the work itself was no longer as various, as interesting, or as sustaining to the personality...

There was a time when you could make a living by the sweat of your brow. Those days are over!

I don’t like the work but mother is dead and father brought me down [to the mines.] I had no choice. I have a harness on like a horse and pull carts. Large carts hold seven and a half hundredweight. [750 lbs.]

I feel we should be able … to find a way of employing more of these so-called unemployables

The lady—bearer of this—says she has two sons who want to work. See them at it, if possible. Wanting to work is so rare a merit, that it should be encouraged.

Policies that promote better wages and better jobs would be super-helpful, and I'm a big fan of programs that encourage people to go where jobs are.