“It's exhausting. When everything's a deliberate political stance. Even if it's interesting.” — A.S. Byatt Copy Share Image
“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 Heart Copy Share Image
“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 Copy Share Image
“Balzac's cynicism was always nevertheless romantic - such greed, such gusto. 'Le dégoût, c'est voir juste. Après la possession, l'amour voit juste… — A.S. Byatt Balzac Copy Share Image
“Something new, they had said. They had a perfect day for it. A day with the blue and gold good weather of… — A.S. Byatt Blue and gold Copy Share Image
“They did go on so, don't you think, those Victorian poets, they took themselves so horribly seriously?' he said, pushing the lift… — A.S. Byatt Classics Copy Share Image
“ If there is a subject that is my own, my dear Ellen, as a writer I mean, it is the persistent… — A.S. Byatt Life Copy Share Image
“Therefore,' said Loki the mockery, to the snake his daughter, 'we need to know everything, or at least as much as we… — A.S. Byatt Copy Share Image
“She sat beside him on the bench, and her presence troubled him. He was inside the atmosphere, or light, or scent she… — 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… — A.S. Byatt Faith 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… — A.S. Byatt Cold Copy Share Image
“The men and women of the Golden Age, Hesiod wrote, lived in an eternal spring, for hundreds of years, always youthful, fed… — A.S. Byatt Copy Share Image
“Things had changed between them nevertheless. They were children of a time and culture which mistrusted love, 'in love', romantic love, romance… — A.S. Byatt Children Copy Share Image
“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 Healing Copy Share Image
“The children mingled with the adults, and spoke and were spoken to. Children in these families, at the end of the nineteenth… — A.S. Byatt Child Copy Share Image
“All old stories, my cousin, will bear telling and telling again in different ways. What is required is to keep alive, to… — A.S. Byatt Copy Share Image
“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 Beginning Copy Share Image
“Those words . . . national and portrait. They were both to do with identity: the identity of a culture (place, language… — A.S. Byatt Art Copy Share Image
“Try to avoid falseness and strain. Write what you really know about. Make it new. Don’t invent melodrama for the sake of… — A.S. Byatt Fitness Copy Share Image
“Think of me if you will as the Lady of Shalott . . . who chooses to watch diligently the bright colours… — A.S. Byatt Copy Share Image
“She was looking for a husband, partly because she was afraid no one might want her, partly because she couldn't decide what… — A.S. Byatt Copy Share Image
“Frederica also thought, for she had been there many times, that if this was a beginning, it was the beginning of an… — A.S. Byatt Beginning Copy Share Image
“She leads you on and baffles you,” said Beatrice. “She wants you to know and not to know. She took care to… — A.S. Byatt Copy Share Image
“Without this excitement they cannot have their Lyric Verse, and so they get it by any convenient means -- and with absolute… — A.S. Byatt Copy Share Image
“Here Carlyle had come, here George Eliot had progressed through the bookshelves. Roland could see her black silk skirts, her velvet trains,… — A.S. Byatt Carlyle Copy Share Image
“I think, yes, a man and a woman can be good friends, but it isn't easy for them being as no one… — A.S. Byatt Friends Copy Share Image
“ We must come to grief and regret anyway - and I for one would rather regret the reality than its phantasm,… — A.S. Byatt Death Copy Share Image
“Maud laughed, drily. Roland said, "And then, really, what is it, what is this arcane power we have, when we see that… — A.S. Byatt Powerlessness Copy Share Image
“Imagining the end of things, when you are a child, is perhaps impossible. The thin child, despite the war that was raging,… — A.S. Byatt Copy Share Image
“Part of her wanted simply to sit and stare out of the window, at the lawn, flaky with sodden leaves, and the… — A.S. Byatt Life Copy Share Image
“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 Whole world Copy Share Image
“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 Copy Share Image
“You know, all poetry may be a cry of generalised love, for this, or that, or the universe - which must be… — A.S. Byatt Copy Share Image
“You do not seem aware, for all of your knowledge of the great world I do not frequent, of the usual response… — A.S. Byatt Correspondence Copy Share Image
“We are a species of animal which is bringing about the end of the world we were born into. Not out of… — A.S. Byatt Animal Copy Share Image
“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 Nice smile Copy Share Image
“There was once a poor shoemaker who had three fine strong sons and two pretty daughters and a third who could do… — A.S. Byatt Children Copy Share Image
“So—I went on, on my own—deeper and deeper into the silent Tunnel of the Ride—not so sure of where I was and… — A.S. Byatt Friendship Copy Share Image
“...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 Art 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.… — A.S. Byatt Death Copy Share Image
