“Children are not like us. They are beings apart: impenetrable, unapproachable. They inhabit not our world but a world we have lost… — Penelope Lively Copy Share Image
I believe that the experience of childhood is irretrievable. All that remains, for any of us, is a headful of brilliant frozen… — Penelope Lively Copy Share Image
I can remember the lush spring excitement of language in childhood. Sitting in church, rolling it around my mouth like marbles--tabernacle and… — Penelope Lively Copy Share Image
“I know quite well why I became a historian… It was because dissension was frowned upon when I was a child: 'Don't argue, Claudia,' 'Claudia, you must not answer back like that.' Argument, of course, is the whole point of history. Disagreement; my word against yours; this evidence against that. If there were such a thing as absolute truth the… — Penelope Lively Copy Share
“The question is, shall it or shall it not be linear history. I've always thought a kaleidoscopic view might be an interesting heresey. Shake the tube and see what comes out. Chronology irritates me. There is no chronology inside my head. I am composed of myriad Claudias who spin and mix and part like sparks of sunlight on water. The… — Penelope Lively Copy Share
There's a preoccupation with memory and the operation of memory and a rather rapacious interest in history. — Penelope Lively Copy Share Image
“He felt marvellously conscious of the moment, of here and now, of this day.” — Penelope Lively Copy Share Image
“But her thoughts are often of the past. That evanescent, pervasive, slippery internal landscape known to no one else, that vast accretion of data… — Penelope Lively Copy Share Image
Getting to know someone else involves curiosity about where they have come from, who they are. — Penelope Lively Copy Share Image
I'm intrigued by the way in which physical appearance can often direct a person's life; things happen differently for a beautiful woman than for… — Penelope Lively Copy Share Image
Since then, I have just read and read - but, that said, I suppose there is a raft of writers to whom I return… — Penelope Lively Copy Share Image
“I have a print - you can buy them at the Victoria and Albert Museum - of a photograph of the village street of… — Penelope Lively Copy Share Image
