I didn't write anything until I was well over 30. Penelope Lively More Quotes by Penelope Lively More Quotes From Penelope Lively There's a preoccupation with memory and the operation of memory and a rather rapacious interest in history. Penelope Lively operationspreoccupationmemories The place didn't look the same but it felt the same; sensations clutched and transformed me. I stood outside some concrete and plate-glass tower-block, picked a handful of eucalyptus leaves from a branch, crushed them in my hand, smelt, and tears came to my eyes. Sixty-seven-year-old Claudia, on a pavement awash with packaged American matrons, crying not in grief but in wonder that nothing is ever lost, that everything can be retrieved, that a lifetime is not linear but instant. That, inside the head, everything happens at once. Penelope Lively blockgriefeye Grief-stricken. Stricken is right; it is as though you had been felled. Knocked to the ground; pitched out of life and into something else. Penelope Lively grief Giving presents is one of the most possessive things we do, did you realize that? It's the way we keep a hold on other people. Plant ourselves in their lives. Penelope Lively givingpeopleway I'm not an historian and I'm not wanting to write about how I perceive the social change over the century as a historian, but as somebody who's walked through it and whose life has been dictated by it too, as all our lives are. Penelope Lively centurysocialwriting The Photograph is concerned with the power that the past has to interfere with the present: the time bomb in the cupboard. Penelope Lively bombsphotographypast I do like to embed a fictional character firmly in an occupation. Penelope Lively fictional-characteroccupationcharacter Equally, we require a collective past - hence the endless reinterpretations of history, frequently to suit the perceptions of the present. Penelope Lively suitsperceptionpast I didn't want it to be a book that made pronouncements. Penelope Lively madewantbook Every novel generates its own climate, when you get going. Penelope Lively climatenovelwriting All history, of course, is the history of wars. Penelope Lively courseswarhistory I'm now an agnostic but I grew up on the King James version, which I'm eternally grateful for. Penelope Lively agnosticgratefulkings I didn't think I had anything particular to say, but I thought I might have something to say to children. Penelope Lively mightchildrenthinking I rather like getting away from fiction. Penelope Lively get-awayfiction I've always been fascinated by the operation of memory - the way in which it is not linear but fragmented, and its ambivalence. Penelope Lively linearmemoriesway If we had not met, that day, I think I would have imagined you somehow. Penelope Lively metsifsthinking I'm not an historian but I can get interested - obsessively interested - with any aspect of the past, whether it's palaeontology or archaeology or the very recent past. Penelope Lively getarchaeologyi-canpast It was a combination of an intense interest in children's literature, which I've always had, and the feeling that I'd just have a go and see if I could do it. Penelope Lively feelinggoliteraturechildren We read Greek and Norse mythology until it came out of our ears. And the Bible. Penelope Lively outmythologyearsbible Deep down I have this atavistic feeling that really I should be in the country. Penelope Lively deepdownfeelingcountry
