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" I think it's more optimistic about human nature to acknowledge that people are the products of their time but then to see that they have moments of grace and dignity that everybody has. "
Eleanor Catton
Nature
Time
See
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" From the very beginning, I had an ambition for 'The Luminaries': a direction - but not a real idea. "
Eleanor Catton
Beginning
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" I'm the rogue Canadian in my family - I just happened to be born here while my parents were studying here. "
Eleanor Catton
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Family
Born
" The way that I see astrology is as a repository of thought and psychology. A system we've created as a culture as way to make things mean things. "
Eleanor Catton
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" I think that writers of literary fiction would do well to read more books for children. "
Eleanor Catton
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Well
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" I would draw a really sharp distinction between creating and producing. I think that they're very different things. "
Eleanor Catton
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Creating
Different
" I think that's what fiction writing is actually all about. It's about trying to solve problems in creative ways. "
Eleanor Catton
Ways
Creative
Problems
" What I feel is that true creation happens when you're making something out of nothing - like it's divine, you know. Creation is a completely divine concept. "
Eleanor Catton
You
True
Nothing
" In my experience, and that of a lot of other women writers, all of the questions coming at them from interviewers tend to be about how lucky they are to be where they are - about luck and identity and how the idea struck them. "
Eleanor Catton
Experience
Women
Lucky
" When I was writing 'The Luminaries,' I read a lot of crime novels because I wanted to figure out which ones made me go, 'Ah! I didn't know that was coming!' "
Eleanor Catton
Know
Writing
Because
" I really wanted to write an adventure story, a murder-mystery that was set during the gold-rush years in New Zealand. "
Eleanor Catton
Story
Zealand
Years
" There are a lot of people of my generation in New Zealand literature, young writers on their first or second books, that I'm just really excited about. There seems to be a big gap between the generation above and us; it seems to be quite radically different in terms of form and approach. "
Eleanor Catton
Generation
Young
People
" Long historical books get written by women, but not contemporary experiments, which still seems to be a very male-dominated field. "
Eleanor Catton
Books
Historical
Field
" I think that you have to keep the reader front and centre if you're going to write something that people are going to love and be entertained by. "
Eleanor Catton
People
Going
You
" My sense of injustice about our family's 'weirdness' in not owning a car was amplified by the fact that we did not own a television, either - my parents were unapologetic about this and told me very cheerfully that I would thank them for it when I was older, which was quite true. "
Eleanor Catton
Parents
Car
Family
" I've had countless reviews sort that have made me cry. It's funny, it doesn't ever get better either; you can't turn your ears off. "
Eleanor Catton
Me
Better
Funny
" There was a computer in our garage when I was growing up, and I'd go out there in winter and wrap myself in a blanket and write a story. "
Eleanor Catton
Winter
Growing Up
Go
" I vote far-left. I am frequently angered by corporate greed and think education ought to be free and teachers paid well. "
Eleanor Catton
Education
Greed
I Am
" In improvising, you've got your scale; you've got the notes that are going to sound good with other notes, the intervals that are going to sound good. But you've also got all the chromatic possibilities, the possibilities of sounding dissident, of being unexpected. "
Eleanor Catton
Possibilities
You
Good
" I think that, in principle, a workshop is such a beautiful idea - an environment in which writers who are collectively apprenticed to the craft of writing can come together in order to collectively improve. "
Eleanor Catton
Writing
Think
Together
" Money doesn't transform a person - the only thing that can is love. "
Eleanor Catton
Person
Money
Love
" I often feel intellectually frustrated when I'm in a position where I'm not moving forward; when I'm not enquiring about something. "
Eleanor Catton
Moving Forward
Moving
Forward
" An interesting thing about New Zealand, you know, literature is that it really didn't begin in any real sense until the 20th century. "
Eleanor Catton
Real
You
Literature
" The zodiac is a system a person can play with and see meaning in. "
Eleanor Catton
See
Meaning
Person
" Margaret Atwood was the author who took me out of children's literature and guided me towards adult literature. "
Eleanor Catton
Literature
Adult
Children
" It is less fun to talk about what I am feeling rather than what I am thinking. Saying 'I feel awesome' isn't really interesting or enquiring. "
Eleanor Catton
I Am
Saying
Thinking
" I don't see that my age has anything to do with what is between the covers of my book, any more than the fact that I am right-handed. It's a fact of my biography, but it's uninteresting. "
Eleanor Catton
Book
More
Fact
" I highlight everything I find interesting, and then type out everything I've highlighted, and then print out everything I've typed, and reread these printed notes as often as possible. "
Eleanor Catton
Find
Interesting
Possible
" My mum was a children's librarian, so I spent a lot of time in the library. My reading life, because of my mum's work, was evenly split between American, Canadian, Australian and British authors. "
Eleanor Catton
Work
Children
Life
" There are so many ways of posturing that people associate with being a writer. They imagine you wearing a beret and drinking only red wine and being full of yourself, and so, for a long time, the way I felt about writing was too private. I felt it too important and didn't want to be teased about it. So I lied about it. "
Eleanor Catton
Time
Red
People
" I believe really strongly in imitation, actually: I think it's the first place you need to go to if you're going to be able to understand how something works. True mimicry is actually quite difficult. "
Eleanor Catton
Think
Place
Believe