The dumbest childhood vow I ever made was to finish every book I started. — Lionel Shriver Copy Share Image
“Wasn't there only one respectable memento of a man worth keeping, the kind that draws Valentines and learns to spell Mississippi?” — Lionel Shriver Copy Share Image
The pediatrician must have thought me one of those neurotic mothers who craved distinction for her child but who in our civilization's… — Lionel Shriver Copy Share Image
The daughter of an ordained minister, I had been forced to go to church since I was a toddler. I hated church… — Lionel Shriver 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
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
“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 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 Copy Share Image
As a child, I was always a sucker for anything in miniature, and it didn't have to be a dress: a desk,… — Lionel Shriver Copy Share Image
Holocausts do not amaze me. Rapes and child slavery do not amaze me. And Franklin, I know you feel otherwise, but Kevin… — Lionel Shriver Copy Share Image
“Franklin, I was absolutely terrified of having a child. Before I got pregnant, my visions of child rearing--reading stories about cabooses with… — Lionel Shriver Copy Share Image
“Franklin, I was absolutely terrified of having a child. Before I got pregnant, my visions of child rearing- reading stories about cabooses… — Lionel Shriver Copy Share Image
“It must be this overarching commitment to what is really an abstraction, to one's children right or wrong, that can be even… — Lionel Shriver 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 a… — Lionel Shriver 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 Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
“I suspect that children want their parents to be busy; they don't want to have to fill your schedule with their paltry… — Lionel Shriver Copy Share Image
Yet if there's no reason to live without a child, how could there be with one? To answer one life with a… — Lionel Shriver Copy Share Image
“I am a wordy writer, and often churn out pages on end without advancing the plot a jot. Hence I try to… — Lionel Shriver Copy Share Image
I realize it's commonplace for parents to say to their child sternly, 'I love you, but I don't always like you.' But… — Lionel Shriver Copy Share Image
“Had I catalogued the downsides of parenthood, "son might turn out to be a killer" would never have turned up on the… — Lionel Shriver Copy Share Image
The discovery that heartbreak is indeed heartbreaking consoles us about our humanity. — 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 enough, and… — 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 either of… — Lionel Shriver 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 can go… — Lionel Shriver Copy Share Image
“The idea is that you don't only have one destiny. Younger and younger, kids are pressed to decide what they want to do with… — Lionel Shriver Copy Share Image
Oddly, for a book to do well merely because people like it is surprisingly rare. — Lionel Shriver Copy Share Image
“And there's a freedom in apathy, a wild, dizzying liberation on which you can almost get drunk.” — Lionel Shriver Copy Share Image
The sign that I don't like the book I'm reading is finding myself watching reruns of 'Come Dine With Me.' — Lionel Shriver Copy Share Image
We speak often of 'destroying the planet' when what we mean is destroying its habitability for humans. — Lionel Shriver Copy Share Image
My agent had warned that, while a fine film would do my profile a world of good, a bad one wouldn't help me at… — Lionel Shriver Copy Share Image
“I think that's the biggest favor you can grant anyone, don't you? Permission to be dull. I know Henry will sometimes say something so… — Lionel Shriver Copy Share Image
“They were determined to find something mechanically wrong with him - because broken machines are easier to fix. p303” — Lionel Shriver 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 the writing of my precious books.” quote by Lionel Shriver](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/b19/lionel-shriver-744_apartment_children-would-have-messed-up-my-apartme_832236.jpg)
![“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/quotes/img-quotes/9ba/lionel-shriver-744_annoying_i-first-foreswore-motherhood-when-i-was_350277.jpg)
