“I know quite well why I became a historian.... It was because dissension was frowned upon when I was a child: 'Don't… — Penelope Lively Copy Share Image
“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 control the world so long as I can name it. Which is why children must chase language before they do anything… — 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
But who knows their own child? You know bits - certain predictable reactions, a handful of familiar qualities. The rest is impenetrable.… — Penelope Lively Copy Share Image
“She saw the shadows of her children, young again, playing on that tree. And now to be here with him. You cross… — Penelope Lively Copy Share Image
Wars are fought by children. Conceived by their mad demonic elders, and fought by boys. — Penelope Lively Copy Share Image
“Children are infinitely credulous. My Lisa was a dull child, but even so she came up with things that pleased and startled… — Penelope Lively Copy Share Image
It was a combination of an intense interest in children's literature, which I've always had, and the feeling that I'd just have… — Penelope Lively Copy Share Image
“When in a foreign country, he thought, you are behind a fence, or in a cell - everything is going on around… — Penelope Lively Copy Share Image
I didn't think I had anything particular to say, but I thought I might have something to say to children. — 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,'… — Penelope Lively Copy Share Image
“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… — Penelope Lively Copy Share Image
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
