Now that children don't till your fields or take you in when you're incontinent, there is no sensible reason to have them,… — Lionel Shriver Advent Copy Share Image
Jonathan Lethem's 10th novel, 'The Blot,' is engaging, entertaining, and sharp for its first two-thirds. Then it goes to hell. — Lionel Shriver Blot Copy Share Image
In the perfect world, no one would need pre-nups. But all too often, a misty-eyed romancer at the altar transforms into a… — Lionel Shriver Marriage Copy Share Image
However unattractive, pre-nups are at least a way round a law that dictates simply because you love someone and share their bed,… — Lionel Shriver Copy Share Image
I didn't care about anything. And there's a freedom in apathy, a wild, dizzying liberation on which you can almost get drunk.… — Lionel Shriver Apathy Copy Share Image
“He's one of those attorneys who think of the law as a game, not a morality play. I'm told that'd the kind… — Lionel Shriver Attorneys Copy Share Image
“They were determined to find something mechanically wrong with him - because broken machines are easier to fix. p303” — Lionel Shriver Acceptance Copy Share Image
“I suppose that's a common conceit, that you've already been so damaged that damage itself in its totality makes you safe.” — Lionel Shriver Damage Copy Share Image
In fact, it's become politically important to offend people, because we have to fight back against this notion that being offensive should… — Lionel Shriver Copy Share Image
You were ambitious - for your life, what it was like when you woke up in the morning, and not for some… — Lionel Shriver Age Copy Share Image
I am hopeful that the concept of 'cultural appropriation' is a passing fad: people with different backgrounds rubbing up against each other… — Lionel Shriver Appropriation Copy Share Image
“With no interruptions to admire dolly outfits, no tomorrow is a school day, we gorged on fruit and sorbet and splashed immoderate… — Lionel Shriver Copy Share Image
I'm sometimes asked if I get bored with talking about 'Kevin,' and of course, the short answer is yes. Nevertheless, after a… — Lionel Shriver Copy Share Image
“Just because there are lots of them doesn't mean that the hot apple pies aren't excellent or that it isn't a privilege… — Lionel Shriver Apple pie Copy Share Image
The premiere of Lynne Ramsay's film of 'We Need To Talk About Kevin' at the Cannes film festival provides an apt juncture… — Lionel Shriver Cannes film festival Copy Share Image
“A petty one, but most resentments are. And one that for its smallness I felt obliged to repress. For that matter, that… — Lionel Shriver Anger Copy Share Image
Letting ourselves down in some fashion is such an integral part of daily life that the paucity of literature on the subject… — Lionel Shriver Books Copy Share Image
“A well-constructed lie is assembled largely from the alphabet blocks of fact, which will as easily make a pyramid as a platform.” — Lionel Shriver Truth Copy Share Image
“Frankly, the reason why lawyers were compensated so lavishly was that they were paid to attend to the most stultifying aspects of… — Lionel Shriver Lawyer Copy Share Image
Criminality being partially preordained may seem to let culprits off the hook. Yet it also makes the proclivity seem ineradicable and suggests… — Lionel Shriver Copy Share Image
A lot of people get so hung up on what they can't have that they don't think for a second about whether… — Lionel Shriver Copy Share Image
For storytellers, financiers make ideal rogues. The easiest way to make characters unappealing is to make them rich - shorthand for spoiled,… — Lionel Shriver Copy Share Image
You can call it innocence, or you can call it gullibility, but Celia made the most common mistake of the good-hearted: she… — Lionel Shriver Celia Copy Share Image
“...trying to be a good mother may be as distant from being a good mother as trying to have a good time… — Lionel Shriver Copy Share Image
I do occasionally encounter a British business that delivers what and when, and for exactly the price, they promised. But commercial paragons… — Lionel Shriver British Copy Share Image
When you've been afraid of something for long enough and it comes to pass, the terrible thing is a release. For in… — Lionel Shriver Copy Share Image
Ironically, heavier comedians, actors, and the characters they play are actually more sympathetic, and easier for audiences to identify with, than the… — Lionel Shriver Copy Share Image
You were always uncomfortable with the rhetoric of emotion, which is quite a different matter from discomfort with emotion itself. — Lionel Shriver Copy Share Image
In the public mind, an investment banker is no longer conservative; he's a risk taker, a gambler in high stakes, not to… — Lionel Shriver Conservative Copy Share Image
“Precocious was not the same as smart, much less the same as wise, and the perfect opposite of informed - since the… — Lionel Shriver Copy Share Image
“I’m a journalist, and journalists need news. Deprive them of it, and they go a bit barking. Deprive them of news long… — Lionel Shriver Journalism Copy Share Image
“Lo, everything that made me pretty was intrinsic to motherhood, and my very desire that men find me attractive was the contrivance… — Lionel Shriver Motherhood Copy Share Image
“Some people think that asking a question gives them a right to know the answer somehow. Well, it's not true. You've no… — Lionel Shriver Copy Share Image
“No, this mother purled about her duties like a bubbling brook, and any number of stones hurled at her eddies sank with… — Lionel Shriver Mother Copy Share Image
In my country, we're sufficiently consumed by the concept of happiness that the right to its pursuit is enshrined in the Declaration… — Lionel Shriver Country Copy Share Image
Set a good example as parents, since the most convincing argument that a girl can become a computer coder is that her… — Lionel Shriver Argument Copy Share Image
I was terrified of growing up to become the anti-me, maturing into a woman whom I would not recognise and who wouldn't… — Lionel Shriver Growing up Copy Share Image
A pre-nup is an insurance policy or, in brokerage terms, a short hedge - meant to mitigate a high-risk investment. It safeguards… — Lionel Shriver Character Copy Share Image
“The liberation of adulthood as we'd conceived it from below was a pipe-dream; with oppressors deposed we became our own tyrants.” — Lionel Shriver Dreams Copy Share Image
“I was disquieted to realize that he had ceased to call me anything at all. That seemed impossible, but your children generally… — Lionel Shriver Children Copy Share Image
