From the very beginning, I had an ambition for 'The Luminaries': a direction - but not a real idea. — Eleanor Catton Copy Share Image
The readership of Victorian novels, when they were published, was much less diverse. People were probably white, and had enough money to… — Eleanor Catton Copy Share Image
My parents took me to the Bronte parsonage in England when I was a teenager. I had a fight with my mum,… — Eleanor Catton Copy Share Image
One of the things I really like about Victorian novels is the close anatomisation of character. People's gestures and mannerisms and the… — Eleanor Catton Copy Share Image
I feel very strongly influenced by long-form box-set TV drama... I feel really excited that, at last, the novel has found its… — Eleanor Catton Copy Share Image
I would draw a really sharp distinction between creating and producing. I think that they're very different things. — Eleanor Catton Copy Share Image
My sense of injustice about our family's 'weirdness' in not owning a car was amplified by the fact that we did not… — Eleanor Catton Copy Share Image
Any description of a person that comes from the outside is very hard to deal with. People don't like being summarised. It's… — Eleanor Catton Copy Share Image
Long historical books get written by women, but not contemporary experiments, which still seems to be a very male-dominated field. — Eleanor Catton Copy Share Image
Teaching is a great complement to writing. It's very social and gets you out of your own head. It's also very optimistic.… — Eleanor Catton Copy Share Image
It's very brave going from a position of authority to one where you are an apprentice. — Eleanor Catton Copy Share Image
“We spend our entire lives thinking about death. Without that project to divert us, I expect we would all be dreadfully bored. We would… — Eleanor Catton Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
“own reputation, by associating himself with a story of cuckoldry, blackmail, murder, and revenge, and nor did he spare a thought for how Balfour… — Eleanor Catton Copy Share Image
“In my experience people are rarely contented to end up where they started.” — Eleanor Catton Copy Share Image
“His temperament was deeply nostalgic, not for for his own past, but for past ages; he was cynical of the present, fearful of the… — Eleanor Catton Copy Share Image
“What was glimpsed in Aquarius—what was envisioned, believed in, prophesied, predicted, doubted, and forewarned—is made, in Pisces, manifest. Those solitary visions that, but a… — Eleanor Catton Copy Share Image
“Gaining control isn't the exciting part. Sleeping with a minor isn't exciting because you get to boss them around. It's exciting because you're risking… — Eleanor Catton Copy Share Image
Astrology's a moving system that depends on where you're looking at it from on Earth. My horoscope here in London would be completely different… — Eleanor Catton Copy Share Image
As an artist, you need to be not at all entitled in your relation with the work. So money is kind of worrying. You… — Eleanor Catton Copy Share Image
The nice thing about the zodiac as a system is it is quite comprehensive as a range of impulses and psychological states it can… — Eleanor Catton Copy Share Image
“True feeling is always circular - either circular, or paradoxical - simply because its cause and its expression are tow halves of the very… — Eleanor Catton Copy Share Image