I hated being a novelist when I was 20 - I had nothing to write about. A. S. Byatt More Quotes by A. S. Byatt More Quotes From A. S. Byatt Lists are a form of power. A. S. Byatt lists form I cannot bear not to know the end of a tale. I will read the most trivial things – once commenced – only out of a feverish greed to be able to swallow the ending – sweet or sour – and to be done with what I need never have embarked on. Are you in my case? Or are you a more discriminating reader? Do you lay aside the unprofitable? A. S. Byatt greed sweet needs He felt changed, but there was no one to tell. A. S. Byatt felt changed Pain hardens, and great pain hardens greatly, whatever the comforters say, and suffering does not ennoble, though it may occasionally lend a certain rigid dignity of manner to the suffering frame. A. S. Byatt heartbreak pain suffering Think of this - that the writer wrote alone, and the reader read alone, and they were alone with each other. A. S. Byatt reader thinking There are things that happen and leave no discernible trace, are not spoken or written of, though it would be very wrong to say that subsequent events go on indifferently, all the same, as though such things had never been. A. S. Byatt events would-be goes-on A surprising number of people - including many students of literature - will tell you they haven't really lived in a book since they were children. A. S. Byatt numbers book children I think the virtue I prize above all others is curiosity. A. S. Byatt virtue curiosity thinking I'm not very interested in myself. I do have a deep moral belief that you should always look out at other things and not be self-centred. A. S. Byatt moral-beliefs self looks Louis de Bernires is in the direct line that runs through Dickens and Evelyn Waugh. . .he has only to look into his world, one senses, for it to rush into reality, colours and touch and taste. A. S. Byatt running reality looks Human beings love stories because they safely show us beginnings, middles and ends. A. S. Byatt love-story ends stories There are many ways of writing badly about painting... There is an 'appreciative' language of threadbare, not inaccurate, but overexposed and irritating words... the language of the schools which 'situates' works and artists in schools and movements... novelists and poets [that] see paintings as allegories of writing. A. S. Byatt artist writing school Never stop paying attention to things. Never make your mind up finally. Do not hold beliefs. A. S. Byatt belief mind attention She was a logical child, as far as children go. She did not understand how such a nice, kind, good God as the one they preyed to, could condemn the whole earth for sinfulness and flood it, or condemn his only Son to a disgusting death on behalf of everyone. This death did not seem to have done much good. A. S. Byatt nice children son I think there are a lot more important things than art in the world. But not to me. A. S. Byatt important art thinking I have a dreadful fear that the more you try to prevent revealing the self the more you do. A. S. Byatt revealing self trying I am a creature of my pen. My pen is the best of me. A. S. Byatt creatures best-of-me possession Creative Writing was not a form of psychotherapy, in ways both sublime and ridiculuous, it clearly was, precisely that. A. S. Byatt sublime creative writing I'm more interested in books than people, and I always expect everybody else to be, but they're not. A. S. Byatt book people I don't understand why, in my work, writing is always so dangerous. It's very destructive. People who write books are destroyers. A. S. Byatt writing book people
