Justin Cartwright

It's true that all my novels have been versions of myself to some degree.

— Justin Cartwright

So often in English fiction, people are either upper-class twits, or else they're knockabouts, less than human.

— Justin Cartwright

The successful advertising agent is the one who can convince the clients that he knows something they don't.

— Justin Cartwright

'The Cauliflower' is not strictly a novel, as Barker says in her indispensable afterword.

— Justin Cartwright

The book tour is a strange institution. You are wheeled about to explain your book and even to justify it.

— Justin Cartwright

If I had been brought up in America, I think I would still have had the same sort of job as a…

— Justin Cartwright

Consciousness - that, to me, is the theme of the modern novel.

— Justin Cartwright

Not many people like Johannesburg, but I love the place.

— Justin Cartwright

Jim Crace's novels have one thing in common, which is that each is set in an entirely original world. None of these…

— Justin Cartwright

Peter Stanford is a writer on religious and ethical matters. He was for four years editor of the 'Catholic Herald.'

— Justin Cartwright

The book that meant most to me was 'The Wind in the Willows.' It sounds ridiculous, but that was my vision of…

— Justin Cartwright

When I wrote my first serious novel, 'Interior', I was inspired by a 1978 book of Updike's, 'The Coup', which is set…

— Justin Cartwright

Tom Fort, a BBC radio journalist, starts from the assumption that 'many of us have a road that reaches back into our…

— Justin Cartwright

I have worshipped Berlin from the day I read 'Two Concepts of Liberty' in South Africa. It seemed to make it respectable…

— Justin Cartwright

It was my idea to do a two-hour course of barista training. I was keen to learn how to finish off my…

— Justin Cartwright

I was lucky to get to Oxford. I am now an honorary fellow of my old college, which is nice, particularly for…

— Justin Cartwright

I'm not an especially male novelist, but I think men are better at writing about men, and the same is true for…

— Justin Cartwright

'The Cauliflower' is full of these bizarre anecdotes, some of them petty, others moving or whimsical, as its many characters try to…

— Justin Cartwright

Writing 'Judas: The Troubling History of the Renegade Apostle' must have been a difficult task because there are no facts. Judas may…

— Justin Cartwright

This Oscar Pistorius business is interesting. There is this cult of carrying lots of guns and being ready to shoot somebody. There…

— Justin Cartwright

The working-class Africans are not doing very well, and one of the problems is their education is so shocking. It is routinely…

— Justin Cartwright

My own interest in Kafka's letter came about when I was writing an article on Peter Ginz, the boy novelist held in…

— Justin Cartwright

The plane approaches Cape Town and, as always, I am astonished by the view of Table Mountain and the surrounding sea. It…

— Justin Cartwright

If Franschhoek has a fault, it is in the lavish refurbishment of wine farms and estates which has reached absurd proportions. Some,…

— Justin Cartwright

“The plane touches down on very rough ground: its wheelbarrow wheels bounce and one set of wings rises alarmingly while the other…

— Justin Cartwright

“I don't think that, when future generations look at the apartheid struggle, they will see it as quite the momentous literary cauldron…

— Justin Cartwright

A connection between poetry and blindness is a classical trope.

— Justin Cartwright

Complete barista-standard coffee machines cost from £1,600 to more than £20,000.

— Justin Cartwright

Coffee must be treated gently and smoothed out. I hadn't realised it was so temperamental.

— Justin Cartwright

For novelists, sharply drawn moral conflicts are often useful, and even human and personal disasters can be seen as material.

— Justin Cartwright

You can't believe anything that's written in an historical novel, and yet the author's job is always to create a believable world…

— Justin Cartwright

There's this idea of bankers retiring and painting watercolours. You can't dabble in art - it's a life. Being a writer, an…

— Justin Cartwright

It is a commonplace to say that novelists should be judged by their work rather than their private lives or their publicly…

— Justin Cartwright

Germany led the world in photography and film: 'The Cabinet of Dr Caligari' and 'Metropolis' are works that, to this day, film…

— Justin Cartwright

Just before the opening of the 20th century, the Collyer brothers, Homer and Langley, are born into great privilege on the Upper…

— Justin Cartwright

It is surprising how many people who don't read believe they have a book in them. Why? Nobody would imagine that Alfred…

— Justin Cartwright

It is uncomfortable to be reminded that the Catholic church only removed the reference to 'perfidious Jews' from the Good Friday liturgy…

— Justin Cartwright

In a way, advertising, for all its shallowness, its love of design, its modishness and its self-justification, is curiously innocent. The idea…

— Justin Cartwright

In his later years, Ramakrishna took up residence at the Dakshineswar Kali Temple, from where his radiance extended far, even beyond his…

— Justin Cartwright

Historians and journalists always have agendas, but if I want to find out what's going on in South Africa, I read Nadine…

— Justin Cartwright