It is hard for me to speak of themes. I like the reader to do that. Otherwise it feels like writing a 3rd grade essay on someone else's work.

If we love the sea as much as we claim to we'll do everything we possibly can to keep it healthy. Otherwise we might as well take up golf.

It’s how I fill the time when nothing’s happening. Thinking too much, flirting with melancholy.

Past tense offers authority, distance, and present tense offers emotional immediacy.

It's impossible to imagine what Australia would be like without surfing.

For a while Australians were desperately trying to be cosmopolitan. I think it is a pointless exercise. Australian novels are those rooted in Australia, with Australian landscapes and colours. My work has always had bits of Western Australia in it. It is always here. The world comes to us.

Humour's the pay-off for all that existential horror.