The financial industry may not be synonymous with economics, but it does control a large enough sector of the global economy to… — Lionel Shriver Control Copy Share Image
“Wasn't there only one respectable memento of a man worth keeping, the kind that draws Valentines and learns to spell Mississippi?” — Lionel Shriver Children Copy Share Image
“I’d no idea that you’d prove such an able apprentice. You were sure to be a journalist, in which case the chances… — Lionel Shriver Journalism Copy Share Image
In my teens, I eyed my adulthood with trepidation, as if stalked by a stranger - one who would seize control as… — Lionel Shriver Adulthood Copy Share Image
In the big picture, few of our careers live up to the dreams we nursed when we were young. In fact, one… — Lionel Shriver Accomplishment Copy Share Image
Formal declarations of mistrust, pre-nups are emotionally unfortunate. They overtly plan for failure, and thus involve a jarring cognitive dissonance. — Lionel Shriver Cognitive Copy Share Image
“The gap between most people’s capacity to conjure beauty from scratch and to merely recognize it when they see it is the… — Lionel Shriver Atlantic Copy Share Image
Change is like that: you are no longer where you were; you are not yet where you will get; you are nowhere… — Lionel Shriver Change Copy Share Image
Perhaps I overemphasized the value of keeping busy… I liked to imagine that I was incapable of doing nothing for afternoons myself,… — Lionel Shriver Afternoon Copy Share Image
“After all, she had announced at our introduction in September that she "simply loves children," Miss Fabricant, with a blunt snub of… — Lionel Shriver Want Married Copy Share Image
“In truth we are bigger, greedier versions of the same eating, shitting, rutting ruck, hell-bent on disguising from somebody, if only from… — Lionel Shriver Child Copy Share Image
There was a point in the latter 1990s at which, suddenly, every sitcom and drama in sight had to have a gay… — Lionel Shriver Character Copy Share Image
“Why would affluence make him mad?" "Maybe he's mad that this is as good as it gets. Your big house. His good… — Lionel Shriver Affluence Copy Share Image
...You can only subject people to anguish who have a conscience. You can only punish people who have hopes to frustrate or… — Lionel Shriver Anguish Copy Share Image
My agent had warned that, while a fine film would do my profile a world of good, a bad one wouldn't help… — Lionel Shriver Bad Copy Share Image
“Exasperatingly, we're all pretty much restricted to learning what people are like with the permanent confound of our own presence, which is… — Lionel Shriver Glimpses Copy Share Image
At the keyboard, unrelenting anguish about hurting other people's feelings inhibits spontaneity and constipates creativity. — Lionel Shriver Creativity Copy Share Image
We'd been assured it wouldn't be painful, though she might experience 'discomfort,' a term beloved of the medical profession that seems to… — Lionel Shriver Agony Copy Share Image
Giving anyone anything takes courage, since so many presents backfire. A gift conspicuously at odds with your tastes serves only to betray… — Lionel Shriver Backfire Copy Share Image
It was important to me to put together a future history that would scan, and serve as the backdrop to the domestic… — Lionel Shriver Economics Copy Share Image
Awful film adaptations follow novelists for the rest of their lives. An atrocious movie of 'We Need to Talk About Kevin' could… — Lionel Shriver Awful Copy Share Image
Though it may be more romantic to picture the bereaved as gaunt, I imagine you can grieve as efficiently with chocolates as… — Lionel Shriver Chocolate Copy Share Image
“Should what you get up to fail to comport with who you think you are, something is surely inaccurate (and likely optimistic)… — Lionel Shriver Inaccurate Copy Share Image
“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 Weep Copy Share Image
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 Cost Copy Share Image
Dieting is odious and can require years of determination and sacrifice. I entirely understand the impulse to say, 'Screw it,' and have… — Lionel Shriver Cake Copy Share Image
“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 Blame Copy Share Image
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 Audience Copy Share Image
Built like an oak tree, against which I could pitch my pillow and read; mornings, I could curl into the crook of… — Lionel Shriver Branches Copy Share Image
“Yet in my experience, when left to their own devices people will get up to one of two things: nothing much, and… — Lionel Shriver Things Copy Share Image
“You loved to savor the present tense and were more conscious than anyone I have ever met that its every constituent is… — Lionel Shriver Present tense Copy Share Image
Everything people do that doesn’t work has to be somebody else’s fault. Next time you know, geezers’ll be suing the government for… — Lionel Shriver Court Copy Share Image
I think Britain is a little better at bringing intellectuals into discourse than America, where I'm from. Though I would say, perhaps,… — Lionel Shriver America Copy Share Image
The daughter of an ordained minister, I had been forced to go to church since I was a toddler. I hated church… — Lionel Shriver Believe Copy Share Image
“Dr. Rhinestein did not test for malice, for spiteful indifference, or for congenital meanness. If they could, I wonder how many fish… — Lionel Shriver Fish Copy Share Image
In a country that doesn't discriminate between fame and infamy, the latter presents itself as plainly more achievable. — Lionel Shriver Achievable Copy Share Image
“there is something implicitly uninteresting about the look of a person who will tell you whatever you want to know.” — Lionel Shriver Uninteresting Copy Share Image
Authors are free to ignore their editors' advice. I often avail myself of this veto power - sometimes out of a pigheadedness… — Lionel Shriver Advice Copy Share Image
“I see now what they mean by "holding your head high," and I am sometimes surprised by how much interior transformation a… — Lionel Shriver Holding Your Head High Copy Share Image
“We all do it (or I used to-yes, once in a while, Franklin, what did you think?), we all know we all… — Lionel Shriver Sexuality Copy Share Image
