“For a while Australians were desperately trying to be cosmopolitan. I think it is a pointless exercise. Australian novels are those rooted in Australia, with Australian landscapes and colours. My work has always had bits of Western Australia in it. It is always here. The world comes to us.” ThinkingWorldTryingBitsNovelExerciseWesternLandscapeColourAustraliaRootedAustralianPointless Author:Tim Winton
“It is always amusing to me and delightful of course that my books sell so well in America and other parts of the world. I can't imagine what people must think as they read my books in Poland. Or in Hebrew and Greek. People are reading all the stories which are about bits of Western Australia.” PeopleThinkingWorldWellsI CanBookStoriesAmericaCoursesReadingBitsImagineSellsWesternGreekAustraliaDelightfulAmusingHebrewPoland Author:Tim Winton
“We are all part of that global traffic and I think that the effort to make yourself understood and to be not a problem for anyone or to hide your own particuarly is a mistake. I think people will and do value individuality.” PeopleThinkingProblemValuesEffortMistakeUnderstoodIndividualityTraffic Author:Tim Winton
“I guess it must be a time-of-life thing, looking back and trying to make some sense of who I am and where I've been. It's a weird thing, having to give an account of yourself, to try to make sense of yourself for yourself. I'm not that old, but I have been writing fiction professionally for a long time now. I started so young and went so hard for so long. And I guess it was about feeling I had the space to look over my shoulder.” GivingWritingTryingLooksLongHas BeensHardFeelingsYoungSpaceFictionLong TimeAccountsShouldersWho I AmMake SenseLooking BackWeird ThingsWriting Fiction Author:Tim Winton
“I don't consciously watch and file lived moments for my work. I have a couple of writer friends who do that and it creeps me out, to be honest. I know people think I must do that too, but I don't. But I do have a long memory.” PeopleThinkingKnowsLongMomentsMemoriesWatchesHonestCoupleBeing HonestFilesCreeps Author:Tim Winton
“I can't make something 'useful' to me in a writing sense for a very long time. I don't have any journalistic instinct. And I do keep a journal, but it's neither very revealing nor fruitful for work. Stuff just bubbles up from the swamp later.” WritingLongI CanStuffLong TimeInstinctBubblesJournalRevealingSwampsJournalistic Author:Tim Winton
“In fiction 'issues' are accidental, sometimes incidental. The place and the people it creates are paramount.” PeopleSometimesFictionIssuesParamount Author:Tim Winton
“I never start with what lots of people think of as a subject or a theme. They're school words, not art words. So, writing essays busts my arse because the art is in addressing the subject. I find it really difficult and monstrously time-consuming. In an essay I need to employ my imagination but it's indentured in a way it's not when I'm free to make everything up.” PeopleThinkingWayNeedsWritingArtSchoolDifficultImaginationSubjectsArt IsThemeEssaysMy ImaginationConsumingArsesTime ConsumingWriting Essays Author:Tim Winton
“I wanted to be a writer all my life. Since I was 10. And then at a certain point I began to assume I was one, which is rich, I know. I didn't meet a writer until I was nearly an adult, so I had no idea what I'd bet the farm on.” KnowsIdeasWantedCertainRichAdultsAssumingNo IdeaFarms Author:Tim Winton
“I've been a writer and a parent since adolescence, it feels like, and I'm still making both gigs up as I go along. I did both in different forms of isolation - too young by conventional standards, too far off-grid culturally and geographically. So my experience is probably too specific to be useful. None of us do this stuff the same way. We just try to endure and press on, I guess.” WayFeelsTryingStillsDifferentFormYoungStuffParentStandardsPressesEndureIsolationConventionalAdolescenceGigsGrids Author:Tim Winton