I'm not an historian but I can get interested-obsessively interested-with any aspect of the past, whether it's palaeontology or archaeology or the… — Penelope Lively Copy Share Image
“Time and the universe lie around in our minds. We are sleeping histories of the world.” — Penelope Lively Copy Share Image
History unravels; circumstances, following their natural inclination, prefer to remain ravelled. — Penelope Lively Copy Share Image
“History is a slippery business; the past is not a constant but a landscape that mutates according to argument and opinion.” — 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
I have long been interested in landscape history, and when younger and more robust I used to do much tramping of the… — Penelope Lively Copy Share Image
I'm not an historian and I'm not wanting to write about how I perceive the social change over the century as a… — Penelope Lively Copy Share Image
“God shall have a starring role in my history of the world. How could it be otherwise? If He exists, then He… — 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… — 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… — Penelope Lively Copy Share Image
Mythology is much better stuff than history. It has form; logic; a message. — Penelope Lively Copy Share Image
I am addicted to arrivals, to those innocent dawn moments from which history accelerates. — Penelope Lively Copy Share Image
Equally, we require a collective past - hence the endless reinterpretations of history, frequently to suit the perceptions of the present. — Penelope Lively Copy Share Image
I have long been interested in landscape history, and when younger and more robust I used to do much tramping of the… — 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
