Richard Flanagan

History, like journalism, is ever a journey outwards, and you must report back what you find and no more.

I had long wanted to write a love story, and I had long - wisely, I felt - shirked the challenge because I felt it the hardest story of all to write.

I am the happiest writing and being with the people I love.

The idea of some people being less than people is poison to any society and needs to be named as such in order to halt its spread before it turns the soul of a society septic.

A novel is a journey into your own soul, and you seek there to discover those things that you share with all others.

War stories deal in death. War illuminates love, while love is the greatest expression of hope, without which any story rings untrue to life. And to deny hope in a story about such darkness is to create false art.

Love stories seek to demonstrate the great truth of love: that we discover eternity in a moment that dies immediately after.

I think all novels are contemporary. When people went to see 'Antony-Cleopatra' at the Globe in the 16th century, they were not going to get a history lesson on the Roman Empire. It was about love, sex, and also about dynastic troubles.

We like love - we love love - but perhaps its only meaning lies in its ubiquitous meaninglessness. We apprehend it, we feel it, and we think we know it, yet we cannot say what we mean by it.

Of all the love stories ever published, I have - realistically - read very few.

What is missed when people talk about books is the moment of grace when the reader creates the book, lends it the authority of their life and soul. The books I love are me, have become me.

Family matters, friends matter, love matters. Those you love and who love you matter. That's what writing does - it allows you to say all those things.