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The beachcomber goes looking for trouble, everything he finds is a sign of trouble. The writer is the same without trouble he has nothing to work with, so he picks over the tide line, over the bits and pieces of people's lives with grim fascination.

Tim Winton

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Tim Winton
Age: 64
Born: 1960
Born: August 4
Novelist
Screenwriter
Writer
Perth
Australia
Timothy John Winton
Without
Goes
Tides
Nothing
Bits
Finds
Work
Trouble
Beach
People
Lines
Sign
Looking
Picks
Lives
Line
Grim
Nature
Writer
Tide
Everything
Pieces
Fascination

More quotes by Tim Winton

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Past tense offers authority, distance, and present tense offers emotional immediacy.
Tim Winton
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In fiction 'issues' are accidental, sometimes incidental. The place and the people it creates are paramount.
Tim Winton
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What I'm saying so badly is we're bred now to believe we're in control and should be in control.
Tim Winton
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When you're surfing you're not thinking about where you parked the car or what you're going to do when you grow up or what you're going to buy when you've got lots of money. You know, you're just there. You're in the moment. And I think in a contemporary world, that's a rare privilege.
Tim Winton
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Australia was once a leader in taking global warming seriously. The former PM [Kevin Rudd] called it 'greatest moral challenge of our time'. But in the past couple of years the national consensus has been eroded and Australians are being encouraged by the polluters and their mates in Parliament to forget it was ever mentioned. It's heartbreaking.
Tim Winton
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There is nowhere else I'd rather be, nothing else I would prefer to be doing. I am at the beach looking west with the continent behind me as the sun tracks down to the sea. I have my bearings.
Tim Winton
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People do change - individuals, families, nations - and the pace of transformation need not be geological.
Tim Winton
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And you can't help but worry for them, love them, want for them - those who go on down the close, foetid galleries of time and space without you.
Tim Winton
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Nothing is as daunting as the threats associated with global warming. That's the biggie. Everyone bangs on about rising sea levels but the real challenge of a warming planet is ocean acidification. An acid ocean spells the end of life on earth.
Tim Winton
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The night is full of stories. They float up like miasmas, as though the dead leave their dreams in the earth where you bury them, only to have them rise to meet you in sleep. Mostly the scenes are familiar, but sometimes everything is strange, the people unknown.
Tim Winton
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In Australia surfing was for the oiks. It was always rebellious. And sadly it was for a long time a bit unreflective and macho and anti-intellectual. Unlike other sports it was essentially a youth cult, like rock and roll. But like rock and roll its people grew up.
Tim Winton
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Doing nothing is making certain you lose. Which is just gutless.
Tim Winton
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It’s how I fill the time when nothing’s happening. Thinking too much, flirting with melancholy.
Tim Winton
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When I was a girl I had this strong feeling that I didn't belong anywhere,... It was in my head, what I thought and dreamt, what I believed..., that's where I belonged, that was my country.
Tim Winton
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For every moment the sea is peace and relief, there is another when it shivers and stirs to become chaos. It's just as ready to claim as it is to offer.
Tim Winton
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It's impossible to imagine what Australia would be like without surfing.
Tim Winton
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We rise to a challenge and set a course. We take a decision. You put your mind to something. Just deciding to do it gets you halfway there. Daring to try.
Tim Winton
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I don't think it's people's utterances that limit the writing. It's the activity itself. It's actually pretty hard to convey to someone who's not a surfer. The sensation is the thing. And it's tough to describe without resorting to clichés or mystical nonsense.
Tim Winton
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Whatever you believe, you need faith to get through the day.
Tim Winton
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It's funny, but you never really think much about breathing. Until it's all you ever think about.
Tim Winton