“It's as if your money, by conceit inexhaustible, isn't real, so your generosity isn't real, either.” — Lionel Shriver Generosity Copy Share Image
“Great American Novel” = ”doorstop of a book, usually pretentious, written by a man.” — Lionel Shriver Book Copy Share Image
Novelists are too often assumed to write veiled autobiography. — Lionel Shriver Autobiography Copy Share Image
It's an apathy so absolute that it's like a hole you might fall in. — Lionel Shriver Apathy Copy Share Image
“...never lie about my age because I want credit for every damned year.” — Lionel Shriver Credit Copy Share Image
Clearly, freedom does not extend to the right to harm other people. — Lionel Shriver Freedom Copy Share Image
I am in flight from my story every day, and it dogs me like a faithful stray. — Lionel Shriver Dog Copy Share Image
But what's so great about being a perfectionist?... You do all this work, and then the stuff you've made just pisses you… — Lionel Shriver Excellence Copy Share Image
“Just cause you get used to something doesn't mean you like it." He added, snapping the magenta, "You're used to me.” — Lionel Shriver Magenta Copy Share Image
For pity's sake, if you don't take a shine to a novel, there are loads more in the world; read something else.… — Lionel Shriver Books Copy Share Image
“Children live in the same world we do.To kid ourselves that we can shelter them from it isn't just naive, it's a… — Lionel Shriver Child Copy Share Image
The most sumptuous experience of ingestion is in-between: remembering the last bite and looking forward to the next one. — Lionel Shriver Copy Share Image
“Not that happiness is dull. Only that it doesn't tell well. And one of our consuming diversions as we age is to… — Lionel Shriver Age Copy Share Image
“I never, ever took you for granted. We met too late for that; I was nearly 33 by then, and my past… — Lionel Shriver Companionship Copy Share Image
Perhaps scientists will eventually discover that we are all clockwork bunnies, and our experience of volition is an electro-chemical illusion. — Lionel Shriver Copy Share Image
In grad school, I took a workshop with Scott Spencer, whose excellent novel 'Endless Love' had just been turned into a film.… — Lionel Shriver Cinema Copy Share Image
Many, if not most, countries blithely expect their citizens to have carte blanche access to the U.S., "land of immigrants," as a… — Lionel Shriver Barriers Copy Share Image
The pediatrician must have thought me one of those neurotic mothers who craved distinction for her child but who in our civilization's… — Lionel Shriver Affliction Copy Share Image
“I think that's the biggest favor you can grant anyone, don't you? Permission to be dull. I know Henry will sometimes say… — Lionel Shriver Love Copy Share Image
“But after I’d survived for so long on the scraps from my own emotional table, you spoiled me with a daily banquet… — Lionel Shriver Copy Share Image
“I have theorized that you can locate most people on a spectrum of the crudest sort and that it may be their… — Lionel Shriver Copy Share Image
For the left-leaning, political identity is liable to be closely intertwined with personal identity. The left is collusive, if not presumptuous: should… — Lionel Shriver Identity Copy Share Image
I read 'The Bell Jar' as an adolescent and, like most teenagers, had no problem identifying with a young woman who had… — Lionel Shriver Copy Share Image
...whenever a woman describes a man as sweet, the dalliance is doomed. — Lionel Shriver Copy Share Image
Laws to protect 'public health' are potentially infinite, especially once they no longer have to be supported by any research whatsoever. — Lionel Shriver Health 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 Capote Copy Share Image
“Kevin folded his arms and looked satisfied; I had gone back to playing Mother. “I knew exactly what I was doing.” He… — Lionel Shriver Parenting Copy Share Image
“I am confessedly and unashamedly almost fifty years old and never lie about my age because I want credit for every damned… — Lionel Shriver Copy Share Image
Hungry for both fantasy and inspiration, readers crave protagonists who, after overcoming seemingly insurmountable obstacles, triumph at the end of the day. — Lionel Shriver Books Copy Share Image
“The energy it sapped from him, not being able to protect her. You wouldn't think that something you couldn't do and were… — Lionel Shriver Energy Copy Share Image
A manuscript under way always gave me something to do; only while enduring the aimlessness between books was I truly glum. — Lionel Shriver Aimlessness Copy Share Image
I might defend the reviewing trade, but a handful of haughty hired hands no longer having the last word on books is… — 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
When we conceive of happiness as a static state, effectively a place toward which we are aimed but at which most of… — Lionel Shriver Dreams Copy Share Image
When you've been afraid of something for long enough and it comes to pass, the terrible thing is a release. For in… — Lionel Shriver Copy Share Image
I do occasionally encounter a British business that delivers what and when, and for exactly the price, they promised. But commercial paragons… — Lionel Shriver British Copy Share Image
Ironically, heavier comedians, actors, and the characters they play are actually more sympathetic, and easier for audiences to identify with, than the… — Lionel Shriver Copy Share Image
You were always uncomfortable with the rhetoric of emotion, which is quite a different matter from discomfort with emotion itself. — Lionel Shriver Copy Share Image
A lot of people get so hung up on what they can't have that they don't think for a second about whether… — Lionel Shriver Copy Share Image
