“Those words . . . national and portrait. They were both to do with identity: the identity of a culture (place, language… — A.S. Byatt Copy Share Image
“The historian is an indissoluble part of his history, as the poet is of his poem, as the shadowy biographer is of… — A.S. Byatt Copy Share Image
“A man is the history of his breaths and thoughts, acts, atoms and wounds, love indifference and dislike, also of his race… — A.S. Byatt Copy Share Image
“The Historian and the Man of Science alike may be said to traffic with the dead. Cuvier has imparted flesh and motion… — A.S. Byatt Copy Share Image
“Above his head at street level, he saw an angled aileron of a scarlet Porsche, its jaunty fin more or less at the upper… — A.S. Byatt Copy Share Image
“Why do you go cold?" He kept his voice gentle. "I - I've analysed it. Because I have the sort of good looks I… — A.S. Byatt Copy Share Image
“She was a thinking child, and worked this out. It hurt her, unlike most knowledge, which was strength and pleasure.” — A.S. Byatt Copy Share Image
“Those words . . . national and portrait. They were both to do with identity: the identity of a culture (place, language and history),… — A.S. Byatt Copy Share Image
“All these are true and none. The place is there Is what we name it, and is not. It is .” — A.S. Byatt Copy Share Image
“He had been taught that language was essentially inadequate, that it could never speak what was there, that it only spoke itself. He thought… — A.S. Byatt Copy Share Image
“ We must come to grief and regret anyway - and I for one would rather regret the reality than its phantasm, knowledge than… — A.S. Byatt Copy Share Image
“Roland had learned to see himself, theoretically, as a crossing-place for a number of systems, all loosely connected. He had been trained to see… — A.S. Byatt Copy Share Image
“She thought human thoughts and stone thoughts. The latter were slow, patchily coloured, textured and extreme, both hot and cold. They did not translate… — A.S. Byatt Copy Share Image
“She looked, quickly, quickly, it was better than before, thanked him and averted her eyes. She came to trust him with her disintegration.” — A.S. Byatt Copy Share Image
