Peter Carey

The great thing about using the past is that it gives you the most colossal freedom to invent. The research is necessary, of course, but no one writes a novel to dramatically illustrate what everybody already knows.

If a woman is bed-heady and it doesn't look put on, it's pretty sexy. But when a woman is wearing a really smart dress with great heels and her hair is pulled back, that's terribly sexy too - like an Audrey Hepburn kind of thing.