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
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
...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
“there is something implicitly uninteresting about the look of a person who will tell you whatever you want to know.” — Lionel Shriver Copy Share Image
“Oh, you knew exactly what I meant. Not that happiness is dull. Only that it doesn't tell well. And one of our… — Lionel Shriver Happiness Copy Share Image
Edith Wharton was a natural story-teller. As plots do in real life, hers flow directly from character. Her prose is so effortlessly… — Lionel Shriver Character Copy Share Image
“The liberation of adulthood as we'd conceived it from below was a pipe-dream; with oppressors deposed we became our own tyrants.” — Lionel Shriver Dreams Copy Share Image
“...trying to be a good mother may be as distant from being a good mother as trying to have a good time… — Lionel Shriver Good mother Copy Share Image
“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 Adults Copy Share Image
“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 Right now Copy Share Image
“[f]or most people, construction is tight, concentrated, bunchy, whereas vandalism offers release; you have to be quite an artist to give positive… — Lionel Shriver Art 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 Mother Copy Share Image
Beauty is aspirational - an ideal that mortals approach but seldom attain. — Lionel Shriver Approach Copy Share Image
Ever since Hiroshima, we've been faced with the depressing fact that you cannot un-invent something. — Lionel Shriver Been Copy Share Image
“Because let's talk about power. In the domestic polity, myth dictates that parents are endowed with a disproportionate amount of it. I'm… — Lionel Shriver Parenting Copy Share Image
“Franklin, I was absolutely terrified of having a child. Before I got pregnant, my visions of child rearing- reading stories about cabooses… — Lionel Shriver Children Copy Share Image
I seem to remember even from when I was very young that when you loved someone you also hated them for making… — Lionel Shriver Hated Copy Share Image
“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 Copy Share Image
When Truman Capote wrote from the perspective of condemned murderers from a lower economic class than his own, he had some gall.… — Lionel Shriver Class Copy Share Image
“Tragedy seems to bring out all varieties of unexpected qualities in people. It was as if some folks got dunked in plastic,… — Lionel Shriver Slings and arrows Copy Share Image
“A well-constructed lie is assembled largely from the alphabet blocks of fact, which will as easily make a pyramid as a platform.” — Lionel Shriver Copy Share Image
