I said in my acceptance speech that I hope that readers remember this not as the year I won the Booker, but the year that there were six extraordinary books on the shortlist. Richard Flanagan Read Quote
You can spend a day in a library and feel: ‘Great, I’ve done a day’s work.’ But it’s only research, not writing. Richard Flanagan Read Quote
My ancestors came from Co Roscommon, transported to Van Diemen’s Land for stealing food. Richard Flanagan Read Quote
I was struck by the way Europeans see history as something neatly linear. For me, it’s not that; it’s not some kind of straight railway. Richard Flanagan Read Quote
The past is there, but life is circular. I have a strong sense of the circularity of time. Richard Flanagan Read Quote
History, like journalism, is ever a journey outwards, and you must report back what you find and no more. Richard Flanagan Read Quote
Horror can be contained within a book, given form and meaning. But in life, horror has no more form than it does meaning. Horror just is. Richard Flanagan Read Quote
In Australia, the Man Booker is sometimes seen as something of a chicken raffle. Richard Flanagan Read Quote
In reading, you sense the divine: the things that are larger and greater and more mysterious than yourself. Richard Flanagan Read Quote
Writing my novel ‘The Narrow Road to the Deep North,’ I came to conclude that great crimes like the Death Railway did not begin with the first beating or murder on that grim line of horror in 1943. Richard Flanagan Read Quote
