Author

We see book-burning as a crime against humanity: it's intolerable because books represent a kind of freedom to us.

Socrates was famously executed for his philosophical and political beliefs. I wondered what would happen if you had a similar character, who was so relentlessly questioning of everything? In a modern society, would we be any more or any less tolerant of that kind of character?

From Samantha Harvey

My sister is my sister regardless - has always been and always will be and has no choice about it. This is a love quite distinct from that of a lover, with whom we fall in love, in part, because they are free and have a choice.

From Samantha Harvey

I'm just fascinated by the past. You know, both by the possibilities it holds and by the complete tyranny of it, the way it sort of keeps you in this stranglehold and makes you want things that you no longer have and you can never get back.

From Samantha Harvey

The past is open to all sorts of magical possibilities because it can't be verified. It's as we make it, so it seems to be entirely free. It seems to be completely up for grabs. But of course it's not.

From Samantha Harvey

It's quite difficult to write about female friendship without it seeming to be a very niche subject. It's a difficult balance.

From Samantha Harvey

There are many ways to go about a story. And if you give yourself some formal constraints, it just makes the job so much - maybe 'easier' isn't the right word, but because you know your boundaries, you can just play within those boundaries much more, so it's much more fun to do.

From Samantha Harvey

What I always liked about Socrates was his insistence on questioning things for the sake of reaching some sort of clarity - even if it is only clarity about the gaps in our knowledge.

From Samantha Harvey

I think we often live at a surface level, and that ends up with us in a lot of difficulty because we just function on assumptions and secondhand knowledge.

From Samantha Harvey

One of the things the novel can do is address big questions in ways that are accessible to people. It's not that I want to teach people, but these are the things that interest me, and this is my medium for exploring ideas, and I think the potential of novels to do that is massive.

From Samantha Harvey

Samantha Harvey

Notable Quotes

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