“He's one of those attorneys who think of the law as a game, not a morality play. I'm told that'd the kind… — Lionel Shriver Attorneys Copy Share Image
Criminality being partially preordained may seem to let culprits off the hook. Yet it also makes the proclivity seem ineradicable and suggests… — Lionel Shriver 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 Truth Copy Share Image
“Frankly, the reason why lawyers were compensated so lavishly was that they were paid to attend to the most stultifying aspects of… — Lionel Shriver Lawyer Copy Share Image
I thought at the time that I couldn't be horrified anymore, or wounded. I suppose that's a common conceit, that you've already… — Lionel Shriver Copy Share Image
We vainly fancy ourselves above the ugly informing and paranoia of the right-wing McCarthy era, but in the 21st century, the Left… — Lionel Shriver Copy Share Image
I never, ever took you for granted. We met too late for that; I was nearly thirty-three by then, and my past… — Lionel Shriver Companionship Copy Share Image
“I had created my own Other Woman who happened to be a boy. I'd seen this in-house cuckolding in other families, and… — Lionel Shriver Copy Share Image
The premiere of Lynne Ramsay's film of 'We Need To Talk About Kevin' at the Cannes film festival provides an apt juncture… — Lionel Shriver Cannes film festival Copy Share Image
“Just because there are lots of them doesn't mean that the hot apple pies aren't excellent or that it isn't a privilege… — Lionel Shriver Apple pie Copy Share Image
I can't be alone among fiction writers in regarding the world, so much weirder than anything we could make up, as beating… — Lionel Shriver Alone Copy Share Image
“She had some appreciation for folks with a greed for sensation. Who were determined to "squeeze the orange" and press fresh experience… — Lionel Shriver Copy Share Image
“I was disquieted to realize that he had ceased to call me anything at all. That seemed impossible, but your children generally… — Lionel Shriver Children Copy Share Image
One of my problems with terrorism is that it's self-evidently bad. The main thing that makes it complicated is the fact that… — 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
Though a fine writer, Scott Spencer will forever be associated with a cheesy, sentimental film starring the vapid box-office draw Brooke Shields. — Lionel Shriver Film Copy Share Image
In the perfect world, no one would need pre-nups. But all too often, a misty-eyed romancer at the altar transforms into a… — Lionel Shriver Marriage Copy Share Image
Lovers communicate not inside sentences, but between them. Passion lurks within interstice. It is grouting rather than bricks. — Lionel Shriver Copy Share Image
Now that children don't till your fields or take you in when you're incontinent, there is no sensible reason to have them,… — Lionel Shriver Advent Copy Share Image
Jonathan Lethem's 10th novel, 'The Blot,' is engaging, entertaining, and sharp for its first two-thirds. Then it goes to hell. — Lionel Shriver Blot Copy Share Image
The only way my head was going truly somewhere else was to travel to a different life and not a different airport. — Lionel Shriver Copy Share Image
In my country, we're sufficiently consumed by the concept of happiness that the right to its pursuit is enshrined in the Declaration… — Lionel Shriver Country Copy Share Image
Set a good example as parents, since the most convincing argument that a girl can become a computer coder is that her… — Lionel Shriver Argument Copy Share Image
“No, this mother purled about her duties like a bubbling brook, and any number of stones hurled at her eddies sank with… — Lionel Shriver Mother 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
I was terrified of growing up to become the anti-me, maturing into a woman whom I would not recognise and who wouldn't… — Lionel Shriver Growing up Copy Share Image
A pre-nup is an insurance policy or, in brokerage terms, a short hedge - meant to mitigate a high-risk investment. It safeguards… — Lionel Shriver Character 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
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
You can call it innocence, or you can call it gullibility, but Celia made the most common mistake of the good-hearted: she… — Lionel Shriver Celia Copy Share Image
For storytellers, financiers make ideal rogues. The easiest way to make characters unappealing is to make them rich - shorthand for spoiled,… — Lionel Shriver 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 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
“Some people think that asking a question gives them a right to know the answer somehow. Well, it's not true. You've no… — Lionel Shriver Copy Share Image
“Lo, everything that made me pretty was intrinsic to motherhood, and my very desire that men find me attractive was the contrivance… — Lionel Shriver Motherhood Copy Share Image
In the public mind, an investment banker is no longer conservative; he's a risk taker, a gambler in high stakes, not to… — Lionel Shriver Conservative Copy Share Image
“I’m a journalist, and journalists need news. Deprive them of it, and they go a bit barking. Deprive them of news long… — Lionel Shriver Journalism Copy Share Image
