A.S. Byatt

“ If there is a subject that is my own, my dear Ellen, as a writer I mean, it is the persistent…

— A.S. Byatt

“Randolph Henry Ash: “What is it? My dear?” Christabel LaMotte: “Ah, how can we bear it?” Randolph Henry Ash: “Bear what?” Christabel…

— A.S. Byatt

“We rode back from Richmond decorously side by side on the top of a bus. It was as though my left side…

— A.S. Byatt

“He slept curled against her back, a dark comma against her pale elegant phrase.”

— A.S. Byatt

“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

“You know, all poetry may be a cry of generalised love, for this, or that, or the universe - which must be…

— A.S. Byatt

“But I cannot love her as I did, because she is not open, because she withholds what matters, because she makes me,…

— A.S. Byatt

“There was a moment during this time, when his face was on hers, cheek on cheek, brow on brow, heavy skull on…

— A.S. Byatt

“Olive Wellwood had the feeling writers often have when told perfect tales for fictions, that there was too much fact, too little…

— A.S. Byatt

“There are readings—of the same text—that are dutiful, readings that map and dissect, readings that hear a rustling of unheard sounds, that…

— A.S. Byatt

“I think we've had rather too much dirt rather than not enough. That's not a prudish English remark, but a statement of…

— A.S. Byatt

“But poets don't want homes -- do they? -- they are not creatures of hearths and firedogs, but of heaths and ranging…

— A.S. Byatt

“She is afraid of divorce, which will free her, as she was not enough afraid of marriage, which trapped her.”

— a.s. byatt

“And she was angry because she knew she was capable of many things she couldn't even define to herself, so they seemed…

— A.S. Byatt

“The whole of our scholarship - the whole of our thought - we question everything except the centrality of sexuality.”

— A.S. Byatt

“He had said she was provocative; so she was, she needed to prove she was there to be seen; but the proof…

— A.S. Byatt

“She was a thin, sickly, bony child, like an eft, with fine hair like sunlit smoke.”

— A.S. Byatt

“I cannot let you burn me up, nor can I resist you. No mere human can stand in a fire and not…

— A.S. Byatt

“He knew her, he believed. He would teach her that she was not his possession, he would show her she was free,…

— A.S. Byatt

“Julian was good at being in love. But he was clever enough to know that what he really liked about being in…

— A.S. Byatt

“One of you needs food,' said the Old Woman, 'and three of you need healing.' So the Princess sat down to good…

— A.S. Byatt

“...failure with clay was more complete and more spectacular than with other forms of art. You are subject to the elements... Any…

— A.S. Byatt

“My Solitude is my Treasure, the best thing I have. I hesitate to go out. If you opened the little gate, I…

— A.S. Byatt

“I would not for the whole world diminish you. I know it is usual in these circumstances to protest—"I love you for…

— A.S. Byatt

“It is possible for a writer to make, or remake at least, for a reader, the primary pleasures of eating, or drinking,…

— A.S. Byatt