“It's not that I have no shame. Rather, I'm exhausted with shame, slippery all over with its sticky albumen taint. It is… — Lionel Shriver Shame Copy Share Image
Worse, the deadly accuracy of filial faultfinding is facilitated by access, by trust, by willing disclosure, and so constitutes a double betrayal. — Lionel Shriver Access Copy Share Image
“In the very instant of his birth, I associated Kevin with my own limitations—with not only suffering, but defeat. Eva” — Lionel Shriver Failure Copy Share Image
Reading time is precious. Don't waste it. Reading bad books, or books that are wrong for a certain time in your life,… — Lionel Shriver Books Copy Share Image
“Everything works, doesn't it? At least if you're white and middle class. So it must often seem to young people that they're… — Lionel Shriver Middle class Copy Share Image
Children live in the same world we do. To kid ourselves that we can shelter them from it isn't just naive it's… — Lionel Shriver Child Copy Share Image
“I so mixed and matched the planet that you sometimes worried I had no commitments to anything or anywhere, though you were… — Lionel Shriver Copy Share Image
“But I was beginning to intuit that full-blown maturity was not so very different from childhood. Both states in their extreme were… — Lionel Shriver Children Copy Share Image
No eleven-year-old has any real grasp of death. He doesn't have any real concept of other people--that they feel pain, even that… — Lionel Shriver Adults Copy Share Image
“That was one of your favorite themes: that profusion, replication, popularity wasn't necessarily devaluing, and that time itself made all things rare.… — Lionel Shriver Copy Share Image
While one can't always begrudge the wealth of people who have at least produced something of value, the rich of the financial… — Lionel Shriver Money Copy Share Image
In the particular dwells the tawdry. In the conceptual dwells the grand, the transcendent, the everlasting. Earthly countries and single malignant boys… — Lionel Shriver Boys Copy Share Image
I first foreswore motherhood when I was about eight years old. ... [Children] were annoying. We were loud and sneaky and broke… — Lionel Shriver Copy Share Image
I am bowled over by the massive number of remarkable people who face down the fact that no, they are not going… — Lionel Shriver Art Copy Share Image
Whoa, that's the kind of little sister I can dig!" said Edison. "Yes, we're all alike," I said. "We cover for you,… — Lionel Shriver Adoration Copy Share Image
“He'd been unable to discern whether this frantic bustle of hers was what it claimed to be - an ardent determination to… — Lionel Shriver Determination Copy Share Image
Overly vigorous investigations of ominously ill-defined 'bullying' can themselves constitute a form of bullying. — Lionel Shriver Bullying Copy Share Image
“And one of our consuming diversions as we age is to recite, not only to others but to ourselves, our own story.” — Lionel Shriver Copy Share Image
When Mexico enjoys an economic boom while the U.S. is in dire fiscal straights, it seemed perfectly credible that Mexico would not… — Lionel Shriver Copy Share Image
Some of the best scenes in drama take almost no time - helping to illustrate that life-changing events in real life often… — Lionel Shriver Copy Share Image
“I wonder if I wouldn't have been more moved if my own mother had taken me in her arms and said, 'I… — Lionel Shriver Business Copy Share Image
I owe thanks to a thoughtful, sophisticated readership hungry for challenging subject matter, for honest portrayals of parenthood, and for fiction whose… — Lionel Shriver Gratitude Copy Share Image
“I don't understand why doctors don't advise everybody to lay on twenty extra pounds while they've got the chance. I might not… — Lionel Shriver Obesity Copy Share Image
[Children] would have messed up my apartment. In the main, they are ungrateful. They would have siphoned too much time away from… — Lionel Shriver Copy Share Image
“[f]or most people, construction is tight, concentrated, bunchy, whereas vandalism offers release; you have to be quite an artist to give positive… — Lionel Shriver Art Copy Share Image
When my novels are packaged as exclusively for women, I'm not only cut off from a vital portion of my audience but… — Lionel Shriver Audience Copy Share Image
“Like most people who did not answer a particular calling from an early age, you placed work beside yourself; any occupation would… — Lionel Shriver Career Copy Share Image
I seem to remember even from when I was very young that when you loved someone you also hated them for making… — Lionel Shriver Copy Share Image
I guess I understand a public intellectual to be somebody who moves public discourse forward: someone who either says something new or… — Lionel Shriver Copy Share Image
“One of the things I learned with Charles," said Gray carefully, "was that finding someone like you does not necessarily mean that… — Lionel Shriver Copy Share Image
“So when I said I'd miss him, I meant I would miss what we had not experienced, and I don't know what… — Lionel Shriver Nostalgia Copy Share Image
February is for curmudgeons, whinge-bags, and misanthropes. You can't begrudge us one month of the year or blame us for being even… — Lionel Shriver Copy Share Image
The fact that my clothing has been visually available to other people I do not find upsetting. The body is another matter.… — Lionel Shriver Copy Share Image
Though a fine writer, Scott Spencer will forever be associated with a cheesy, sentimental film starring the vapid box-office draw Brooke Shields. — Lionel Shriver Film Copy Share Image
“I had created my own Other Woman who happened to be a boy. I'd seen this in-house cuckolding in other families, and… — Lionel Shriver Copy Share Image
I thought at the time that I couldn't be horrified anymore, or wounded. I suppose that's a common conceit, that you've already… — Lionel Shriver Copy Share Image
We vainly fancy ourselves above the ugly informing and paranoia of the right-wing McCarthy era, but in the 21st century, the Left… — Lionel Shriver Copy Share Image
I never, ever took you for granted. We met too late for that; I was nearly thirty-three by then, and my past… — Lionel Shriver Companionship Copy Share Image
The only way my head was going truly somewhere else was to travel to a different life and not a different airport. — Lionel Shriver Copy Share Image
Lovers communicate not inside sentences, but between them. Passion lurks within interstice. It is grouting rather than bricks. — Lionel Shriver Copy Share Image
![“I first foreswore motherhood when I was about eight years old. ... [Children] were annoying. We were loud and sneaky and broke things. As an eight-year-old, maybe I was simply mortified by the prospect of being saddled with myself.” quote by Lionel Shriver](https://sms4smile.com/q/img-quotes/9ba/lionel-shriver-744_annoying_i-first-foreswore-motherhood-when-i-was_350277.jpg)
![“[Children] would have messed up my apartment. In the main, they are ungrateful. They would have siphoned too much time away from the writing of my precious books.” quote by Lionel Shriver](https://sms4smile.com/q/img-quotes/b19/lionel-shriver-744_apartment_children-would-have-messed-up-my-apartme_832236.jpg)
![“[f]or most people, construction is tight, concentrated, bunchy, whereas vandalism offers release; you have to be quite an artist to give positive expression to abandon.” quote by Lionel Shriver](https://sms4smile.com/q/img-quotes/7e4/lionel-shriver-744_art_f-or-most-people-construction-is-tight-c_1679635.jpg)
