A fictionalised memoir of my father would be a failure as a novel. — Richard Flanagan Copy Share Image
When I was younger, I was full of smart things to say about all my books. — Richard Flanagan Copy Share Image
As a novelist, you have to be free. Books can't be an act of filial duty. — Richard Flanagan Copy Share Image
The monsters demand less of you as a writer because they're probably closer to who you are. — Richard Flanagan Copy Share Image
I believe in the verb, not the noun - I am not a writer, but someone compelled to write. — Richard Flanagan Copy Share Image
I had long wanted to write a love story, and I had long - wisely, I felt - shirked the challenge because… — Richard Flanagan Copy Share Image
I think sometimes writers must attempt to communicate the incommunicable, because, whether they wish it or not, they're the ones to whom… — Richard Flanagan Copy Share Image
I never know what I am writing. The moment you know what you're writing, you're writing nothing worth reading. — Richard Flanagan Copy Share Image
Family matters, friends matter, love matters. Those you love and who love you matter. That's what writing does - it allows you… — Richard Flanagan Copy Share Image
You have to attempt to find new forms that will force you to write freshly and better and hopefully more truthfully. — Richard Flanagan Copy Share Image
A novel is a journey into your own soul, and you seek there to discover those things that you share with all… — Richard Flanagan Copy Share Image
Writing is not lying, nor is it theft. It is a journey and search for transparency between one’s words and one’s soul. — Richard Flanagan Copy Share Image
What is missed when people talk about books is the moment of grace when the reader creates the book, lends it the… — Richard Flanagan Copy Share Image
After writing a novel, what is there to say? If a novelist could say it in a maxim, they wouldn't need 120,000… — Richard Flanagan Copy Share Image
“A good book, he had concluded, leaves you wanting to reread the book. A great book compels you to reread your own… — Richard Flanagan Copy Share Image
I had some bad jobs when I was young. Writing is not one of them. If you're fortunate enough to reach my… — Richard Flanagan Copy Share Image
I do not share the pessimism of the age about the novel. They are one of our greatest spiritual, aesthetic and intellectual… — Richard Flanagan Copy Share Image
A writer has to stand outside the page. It's not for the writer to shed tears onto the pages for these characters.… — Richard Flanagan Copy Share Image
Writing reminds you that you're never alone. Writing and reading is to be optimistic. — Richard Flanagan Copy Share Image
Companies that are terrifying to a writer are companies like Amazon. — Richard Flanagan Copy Share Image
“-to judge us all through the machine of the Commandant's monstrous fictions! As though they were the truth! As though history &… — Richard Flanagan Copy Share Image
I'm a successful novelist, and I've been a lucky one, so I don't want to cry the poor mouth. Writing has never… — Richard Flanagan Copy Share Image
I think it's always wrong of writers to make too much of the pains of their labors, because most people have much… — Richard Flanagan Copy Share Image
I love words because you can only live one life, but in a novel, you can live a thousand: you contain multitudes. — Richard Flanagan Copy Share Image
I said in my acceptance speech that I hope that readers remember this not as the year I won the Booker, but… — Richard Flanagan Copy Share Image
It's a sin for a writer to go looking for camels to put into his or her pages. I only want details… — Richard Flanagan Copy Share Image
A good book ... leaves you wanting to reread the book. A great book compels you to reread your own soul. — Richard Flanagan Copy Share Image
Look at the history of literature, and you find the history of beauty on the one hand and the IOUs on the… — Richard Flanagan Copy Share Image
“He believed books had an aura that protected him, that without one beside him he would die. He happily slept without women.… — Richard Flanagan Copy Share Image
In reading, you sense the divine: the things that are larger and greater and more mysterious than yourself. — Richard Flanagan Copy Share Image
I went to study at Oxford University in the 1980s on an imperial scholarship instituted by Cecil Rhodes. — Richard Flanagan Copy Share
Writing is not lying, nor is it theft. It is a journey and search for transparency between one’s words and one’s soul. — Richard Flanagan Copy Share
In reading, you sense the divine: the things that are larger and greater and more mysterious than yourself. — Richard Flanagan Copy Share
Within white Australia, there was a growing movement for what was known as reconciliation - a movement that peaked with millions marching in 2000… — Richard Flanagan Copy Share
In 1995, the Paul Keating Labor government commissioned an inquiry into the forcible removal of Aboriginal children. — Richard Flanagan Copy Share
Murder and hate are as deeply buried in the human heart as love, perhaps more so, and in truth they're rather entwined, and if… — Richard Flanagan Copy Share
My father was the first to read in his family, and he said to me that words were the first beautiful thing he ever… — Richard Flanagan Copy Share
I grew up in a world that was clannish - old Tasmanian-Irish families with big extended families. — Richard Flanagan Copy Share
If 30 Australians drowned in Sydney Harbour, it would be a national tragedy. But when 30 or more refugees drown off the Australian coast,… — Richard Flanagan Copy Share
The enslavement, humiliation, torture, and ultimate destruction of thousands upon thousands of human beings for a project for which there was ultimately no purpose… — Richard Flanagan Copy Share
In Tasmania, an island the size of Ireland whose primeval forests astonished 19th-century Europeans, an incomprehensible ecological tragedy is being played out. — Richard Flanagan Copy Share
You have to attempt to find new forms that will force you to write freshly and better and hopefully more truthfully. — Richard Flanagan Copy Share
Family matters, friends matter, love matters. Those you love and who love you matter. That's what writing does - it allows you to say… — Richard Flanagan Copy Share
A good book ... leaves you wanting to reread the book. A great book compels you to reread your own soul. — Richard Flanagan Copy Share
