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The nice thing about the zodiac as a system is it is quite comprehensive as a range of impulses and psychological states it can speak about.
Eleanor Catton -
A trip to the picture framer's, with a selection of prints, is the most joyous outing I can imagine. I've spent more money on framing than on anything else I own.
Eleanor Catton
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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 -
Often I listen to songs on repeat for days and days at a time. There's something hypnotic or meditative, and it mirrors the way that I am putting the sentence together, going back over the same phrases again and again.
Eleanor Catton -
I grew up on the South Island of New Zealand, in a city chosen and beloved by my parents for its proximity to the mountains - Christchurch is two hours distant from the worn saddle of Arthur's Pass, the mountain village that was and is my father's spiritual touchstone, his chapel and cathedral in the wild.
Eleanor Catton -
I would draw a really sharp distinction between creating and producing. I think that they're very different things.
Eleanor Catton -
I vote far-left. I am frequently angered by corporate greed and think education ought to be free and teachers paid well.
Eleanor Catton -
I really wanted to write an adventure story, a murder-mystery that was set during the gold-rush years in New Zealand.
Eleanor Catton
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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 -
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 -
Money doesn't transform a person - the only thing that can is love.
Eleanor Catton -
My second novel, 'The Luminaries,' is set in the New Zealand gold rushes of the 1860s, though it's not really a historical novel in the conventional sense. So far, I've been describing it as 'an astrological murder mystery.'
Eleanor Catton -
I loved 'Middlemarch,' I think that's one of my favourite books of all time, actually.
Eleanor Catton -
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's what fiction writing is actually all about. It's about trying to solve problems in creative ways.
Eleanor Catton -
I think the adverb is a much-maligned part of speech. It's always accused of being oppressive, even tyrannical, when in fact it's so supple and sly.
Eleanor Catton -
It's very brave going from a position of authority to one where you are an apprentice.
Eleanor Catton -
Margaret Atwood was the author who took me out of children's literature and guided me towards adult literature.
Eleanor Catton -
My father is an expatriate American; he fell in love with New Zealand in his youth and never went home.
Eleanor Catton -
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
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The ability of humans to read meaning into patterns is the most defining characteristic we have.
Eleanor Catton -
Teaching is a great complement to writing. It's very social and gets you out of your own head. It's also very optimistic. It renews itself every year - it's a renewable resource.
Eleanor Catton -
Long historical books get written by women, but not contemporary experiments, which still seems to be a very male-dominated field.
Eleanor Catton -
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