# Quote — Tim Winton, Cloudstreet

> Sam followed [his father], loved him, listened to him talk. He believed deeply in luck, the old man, though he was careful never to say the word. He called it the shifty shadow of God. All his life he paid close attention to the movements of that shadow. He taught Sam to see it passing, feel it hovering, because he said it was those shifts that governed a man's life and it always paid to be ahead of the play. If the chill of its shade felt good, you went out to meet it like a droughted farmer goes out, arms wide, to greet the raincloud, but if you got that sick, queer feeling in your belly, you had to stay put and do nothing but breathe and there was a good chance it would pass you by. It was as though luck made choices, that it could think. If you greeted it, it came to you; if you shunned it, it backed away.

- Author: [Tim Winton](https://www.leafyquotes.com/tim-winton.md)
- Book: [Cloudstreet](https://www.leafyquotes.com/tim-winton/cloudstreet.md)
- Page: 8
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Tim_Winton#Cloudstreet_(1991)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/tim-winton/cloudstreet/sam-followed-his

## More from this book

> Oriel looked at the potatoes in her hand and thought of the things she'd like to tell the spud growers of Australia about taking a little time, a little pride and a little care.

p. 266 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/tim-winton/cloudstreet/oriel-looked-at-the.md)

> Why was it that he didn't know a thing about the underlying nature of people, the shadows and shifts, the hungers and hopes that caused them to do the things they did?

p. 267 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/tim-winton/cloudstreet/why-was-it-that.md)

> "It does you good to be tenants. It reminds you of your own true position in the world."

p. 416 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/tim-winton/cloudstreet/it-does-you.md)