Peter Carey

Writers, at least writers of fiction, are always full of anxiety and worry.

Faulkner's 'As I Lay Dying' had an immense effect on me, and most of my novels bear the burn marks of this experience, those short chapters with their conflicting points of view, truth expressed by multiple perspectives. The other attractive thing about 'As I Lay Dying' was the way it gave rich voices to the poor.

I would be the worst person on earth to be called to write an account of someone else's life.

I woke up in Australia almost every day for the first 47 years of my life. When I left, I didn't discard that, didn't reject that, didn't forget that. Not even New York City can wipe that out.

I don't think you have the right to shout about other people's private life.

I thought I would be an organic chemist. I went off to university, and when I couldn't understand the chemistry lectures I decided that I would be a zoologist, because zoologists seemed like life-loving people.

My father left school at the age of fourteen, so this was a man with no deep experience of formal education.

In about 1975-76, I lived with a woman in a little hut with some fruit trees, and I had some of the most extraordinary, happy times of my life. Apart from the horrendous Queensland police, who were corrupt and venal, it really was like living in paradise.

I have written a memoir here and there, and that takes its own form of selfishness and courage. However, generally speaking, I have no interest in writing about my own life or intruding in the privacy of those around me.

Culture is the way for a country to know itself.

I think there was, and there is, a real Commonwealth culture. It's different. America doesn't really feel to be a part of that.

My mother was the daughter of a poor schoolteacher - well, that's a tautology - a country schoolteacher.