I see disappointment as something small and aggregate rather than something unified or great. With a little effort, every failure can be turned into something good. – Eleanor Catton
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 to down in New Zealand. – Eleanor Catton
The readership of Victorian novels, when they were published, was much less diverse. People were probably white, and had enough money to be literate. Very often, there are phrases in Italian, German and French that are left untranslated. – 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
The ability of humans to read meaning into patterns is the most defining characteristic we have. – Eleanor Catton
I think that’s what fiction writing is actually all about. It’s about trying to solve problems in creative ways. – Eleanor Catton
It’s very brave going from a position of authority to one where you are an apprentice. – Eleanor Catton
I went to a state school in Christchurch, New Zealand, and then straight on to the University of Canterbury. But I worked part-time all the way through high school: first with a paper round, then at a fast-food outlet, a video store and a hardware store. – Eleanor Catton
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
There are a lot of people of my generation in New Zealand literature, young writers on their first or second books, that I’m just really excited about. There seems to be a big gap between the generation above and us; it seems to be quite radically different in terms of form and approach. – Eleanor Catton
I had never read Victorian novels before going overseas. I read a handful of authors, but I had not immersed myself in the literature of the 19th century. – 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
In my experience, and that of a lot of other women writers, all of the questions coming at them from interviewers tend to be about how lucky they are to be where they are – about luck and identity and how the idea struck them. – Eleanor Catton
As an artist, you need to be not at all entitled in your relation with the work. So money is kind of worrying. You can start to expect things if you’re used to a certain level of comfort. – Eleanor Catton
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
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 have always loved reading books for children and young adults, particularly when those books are mysteries. – Eleanor Catton
You can tell when a writer moves out of a place of struggle and into a place of comfort, and it’s always a bad thing. – Eleanor Catton
I think it’s more optimistic about human nature to acknowledge that people are the products of their time but then to see that they have moments of grace and dignity that everybody has. – Eleanor Catton
One of the things I really like about Victorian novels is the close anatomisation of character. People’s gestures and mannerisms and the quality of their thought is very closely identified and analysed. – Eleanor Catton
There are so many ways of posturing that people associate with being a writer. They imagine you wearing a beret and drinking only red wine and being full of yourself, and so, for a long time, the way I felt about writing was too private. I felt it too important and didn’t want to be teased about it. So I lied about it. – Eleanor Catton
The challenge that I set for myself was to see whether or not plot and structure could coexist, and why it was that we had to always privilege one above the other. – Eleanor Catton
I think that, in principle, a workshop is such a beautiful idea – an environment in which writers who are collectively apprenticed to the craft of writing can come together in order to collectively improve. – 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
Sometimes I’ll read something on Twitter, and I’ll just be in the darkest of moods for the rest of the day or the rest of the week sometimes. – Eleanor Catton
The books that really made an impact on me were not set in New Zealand. Some were New Zealand novels, but the New Zealandness of them was not what carried me or excited me. – 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
