Lionel Shriver

“He prizes ambiguity; he loves to keep you guessing.”

— Lionel Shriver

“Time itself makes all things rare.”

— Lionel Shriver

“Discomfort begets discomfort in others.”

— Lionel Shriver

“and Germans are obsessed with shit.”

— Lionel Shriver

Happiness isn't a position. It's a trajectory.

— Lionel Shriver

“He wasn't mad, he was sad.”

— Lionel Shriver

Ultimately, Hillary and Obama are on the same side.

— Lionel Shriver

“At some point there was no almost.”

— Lionel Shriver

Maybe the greatest favour a spouse can tender is to overlook what you can't.

— Lionel Shriver

Publishers like their authors to take advantage of publicity opportunities.

— Lionel Shriver

“Likewise, the simple adjacency of warm bodies supplies the deepest of animal comfort.”

— Lionel Shriver

For that matter, thinking of one's self as exceptional is probably more the rule than not.

— Lionel Shriver

I have no end of failings as a mother, but I have always followed the rules.

— Lionel Shriver

But indifference would ultimately commend itself as a devastating weapon.

— Lionel Shriver

Over my lifetime, heavy usage has woefully eroded profanity's power.

— Lionel Shriver

“I bask in their heatedness as before a woodstove. My own apathy is bone chilling.”

— Lionel Shriver

“Yet in my experience, when left to their own devices people will get up to one of two things: nothing much, and…

— Lionel Shriver

“You loved to savor the present tense and were more conscious than anyone I have ever met that its every constituent is…

— Lionel Shriver

Built like an oak tree, against which I could pitch my pillow and read; mornings, I could curl into the crook of…

— Lionel Shriver

“You can blame your mother, and she can blame hers. Leastways sooner or later it's the fault of somebody who's dead.”

— Lionel Shriver

In the big picture I write for an audience of people I've never met. By the final draft I'm looking for anything…

— Lionel Shriver

We need to recognise that slowing population growth is one of the most cost-effective and reliable ways of easing pressure on our…

— Lionel Shriver

Dieting is odious and can require years of determination and sacrifice. I entirely understand the impulse to say, 'Screw it,' and have…

— Lionel Shriver

“But you said that if the U.S. were to fall or founder during your lifetime, collapse economically, be overrun by an aggressor,…

— Lionel Shriver

“I didn't put in my diaphragm' I mumbled when we were through. You stirred, 'Is it dangerous?' 'It's very dangerous,' I said.…

— Lionel Shriver

“So sturdy and solid, so wide, so thick, none of that delicate wristy business of my imaginings. Built like an oak tree,…

— Lionel Shriver

“His weight makes him a social pariah. It reduces the likelihood he’ll remarry. It has grave implications for his health. But it…

— Lionel Shriver

“I kept scrabbling around in myself for this new indescribable emotion, like stirring a crowded silverware drawer for the potato peeler, but…

— Lionel Shriver

“High rents had priced out the very service sector whose presence at ready hand once helped to justify urban living. For all…

— Lionel Shriver

“A successful lie cannot be brought into this world and capriciously abandoned; like any committed relationship,it must be maintained, and with far…

— Lionel Shriver

“And Lawrence was afraid of the main thing. He had a tendency to talk feverishly all around the main thing, as if…

— Lionel Shriver

“Still, I may have been glad to scratch the dry surface of our day-to-day peaceableness the way Violetta had clawed the sere…

— Lionel Shriver

“Pregnancy had seemed a reasonable excuse for letting her metal-smithing tools languish, but that accounted for only eighteen months of the last…

— Lionel Shriver

“Franklin, I was absolutely terrified of having a child. Before I got pregnant, my visions of child rearing- reading stories about cabooses…

— Lionel Shriver

“I hazarded to your mother that tragedy seems to bring out all varieties of unexpected qualities in people. I said it was…

— Lionel Shriver

“It was a short session of the simple being-ness that he had long coveted for The Afterlife. What Glynis had called "doing…

— Lionel Shriver

“I did feel a concentrated dislike for those boys, who couldn't submit to the odd faithless girlfriend, needling classmate, or dose of…

— Lionel Shriver

“Couples stray,” said Edgar. “Part of the breaking-in process.” “Not breaking in, breaking.” Nicola differed sharply. “You can glue people together again.…

— Lionel Shriver

Now, bitterly, with one sweep of the front door, the compassion was spent. To the degree that Lawrence's face was familiar, it…

— Lionel Shriver

“My story is about all I got to my name right now, and that's why I feel robbed. But a story's a…

— Lionel Shriver