“Outside, she thought that there ought to be a word for it: the air temperature that was perfectly neither hot nor cold.… — Lionel Shriver Copy Share Image
When we conceive of happiness as a static state, effectively a place toward which we are aimed but at which most of… — Lionel Shriver Copy Share Image
Yet Irina had once tucked away, she wasn't sure when or why, that happiness is almost definitionally a condition of which you… — Lionel Shriver Copy Share Image
“Oh, you knew exactly what I meant. Not that happiness is dull. Only that it doesn't tell well. And one of our… — Lionel Shriver Copy Share Image
“Not that happiness is dull. Only that it doesn't tell well. And one of our consuming diversions as we age is to… — Lionel Shriver 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 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
