A. S. Byatt Quotes, Beach Quotes, Dark Quotes

They took to silence. They touched each other without comment and without progression. A hand on a hand, a clothed arm, resting on an arm. An ankle overlapping an ankle, as they sat on a beach, and not removed. One night they fell asleep, side by side... He slept curled against her back, a dark comma against her pale elegant phrase.

6 years ago

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Tags : A. S. Byatt Quotes , Beach Quotes , Dark Quotes

There is a peculiar aesthetic pleasure in constructing the form of a syllabus, or a book of essays, or a course of lectures. Visions and shadows of people and ideas can be arranged and rearranged like stained-glass pieces in a window, or chessmen on a board.

6 years ago

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Tags : A. S. Byatt Quotes , Book Quotes , Glasses Quotes

I think the virtue I prize above all others is curiosity. If you look really hard at almost anybody, and try to see why they're doing what they're doing, taking a dig at them ceases to be what you want to do even if you hate them.

6 years ago

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I think vestigially there's a synesthete in me but not like a real one who immediately knows what colour Wednesday is.

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I am a creature of my pen. My pen is the best of me.

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I think there are a lot more important things than art in the world. But not to me.

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Tags : A. S. Byatt Quotes , Art Quotes , Thinking Quotes

…words have been all my life, all my life--this need is like the Spider's need who carries before her a huge Burden of Silk which she must spin out--the silk is her life, her home, her safety--her food and drink too--and if it is attacked or pulled down, why, what can she do but make more, spin afresh, design anew….

6 years ago

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Tags : A. S. Byatt Quotes , Home Quotes , Safety Quotes

I'm not very interested in myself. I do have a deep moral belief that you should always look out at other things and not be self-centred.

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Tags : A. S. Byatt Quotes , Self Quotes , Looks Quotes

Biographies are no longer written to explain or explore the greatness of the great. They redress balances, explore secret weaknesses, demolish legends.

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Tags : A. S. Byatt Quotes , Greatness Quotes , Secret Quotes

He felt changed, but there was no one to tell.

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Never stop paying attention to things. Never make your mind up finally. Do not hold beliefs.

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No mere human can stand in a fire and not be consumed.

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Think of this - that the writer wrote alone, and the reader read alone, and they were alone with each other.

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Tags : A. S. Byatt Quotes , Thinking Quotes

I'm more interested in books than people, and I always expect everybody else to be, but they're not.

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Narration is as much a part of human nature as breath and the circulation of the blood.

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I think the names of colors are at the edge, between where language fails and where it's at its most powerful.

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I worry about anthropomorphism as a form of self-deception. (The Christian religion is an anthropomorphic account of the universe.)

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Tags : A. S. Byatt Quotes , Christian Quotes , Self Quotes

I think the virtue I prize above all others is curiosity.

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Tags : A. S. Byatt Quotes , Thinking Quotes , Curiosity Quotes

Lists are a form of power.

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What literature can and should do is change the people who teach the people who don't read the books.

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Tags : A. S. Byatt Quotes , Change Quotes , Book Quotes