A. S. Byatt - QuotesChannel

Author : A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

12,865,578 quotes searched till now

A. S. Byatt

English, Novelist

Total Quotes : 65

Doing I Think Dig

I think the virtue I prize above all others is curiosity. If you look really hard at almost anybody, and try to see why they're doing what they're doing, taking a dig at them ceases to be what you want to do even if you hate them.

- A. S. Byatt

Work Always Very

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

Color I Think Before

I like to write about painting because I think visually. I see my writing as blocks of color before it forms itself. I think I also care about painting because I'm not musical. Painting to me is not a metaphor for writing, but something people do that can never be reduced to words.

- A. S. Byatt

Chaos Ants About

I don't only write about English literature; I also write about chaos theory and... ants. I can understand ants.

- A. S. Byatt

Think I Think Like

I think vestigially there's a synesthete in me, but not like a real one who immediately knows what colour Wednesday is.

- A. S. Byatt

Love Show Stories

Human beings love stories because they safely show us beginnings, middles and ends.

- A. S. Byatt

Deep Always Very

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

Nothing About Had

I hated being a novelist when I was 20 - I had nothing to write about.

- A. S. Byatt

Mind Finally Your

Never stop paying attention to things. Never make your mind up finally. Do not hold beliefs.

- A. S. Byatt

Tell Other Almost

As a little girl, I didn't like stories about little girls. I liked stories about dragons and beasts and princes and princesses and fear and terror and the Four Musketeers and almost anything other than nice little girls making moral decisions about whether to tell the teacher about what the other little girl did or did not do.

- A. S. Byatt

Injustice About Capital

There are things I take sides about, like capital punishment, which it seems to me there is only one side about: it is evil. But there are two or three sides to sexual harassment, and the moment you get into particular cases, there is injustice in every conceivable direction. It's a mess.

- A. S. Byatt

About Increasingly TV

On buses and trains, I always think about the inexhaustible variety of human genes. We see types, and occasionally twins, but never doubles. All faces are unique, and this is exhilarating, despite the increasingly plastic similarity of TV stars and actors.

- A. S. Byatt

Motherhood Very Idea

I grew up with that completely fictive idea of motherhood, where the mother never strayed from the kitchen. All the women in my books are very afraid that if they do anything with their minds they won't be complete women. I don't think my daughters' generation has that feeling.

- A. S. Byatt

Work Doing Think

If a novelist tells you something she knows or thinks, and you believe her, that is not because either of you think she is God, but because she is doing her work - as a novelist.

- A. S. Byatt

Think I Think Sympathetic

I think my characters with my fingers, I think my characters with my guts. But when I say I think them, that is what I do, I feel them with the sympathetic neurons and I work out with my brain what it is that I am trying to write about, or I can't do it.

- A. S. Byatt

Game Feel Been

I watch a lot of sport on television. I only watch certain sports, and I only watch them live - I don't think I've ever been able to watch a replay of a match or game of which the result was already decided. I feel bound to cheat and look up what can be looked up.

- A. S. Byatt

Think Like Ask

I don't like gurus. I don't like people who ask you to follow or believe. I like people who ask you to think independently.

- A. S. Byatt

I Think Fact I Write

I always say I write my own novels and the characters don't take control of me, but in fact, I look at the characters in the early stages and I think, 'What is he or she like,' and they slowly come together and they become the person they are.

- A. S. Byatt

Reason Which Read

I know that part of the reason I read Tolkien when I'm ill is that there is an almost total absence of sexuality in his world, which is restful.

- A. S. Byatt

Doing Some Perfectly

I did a lot of my writing as though I was an academic, doing some piece of research as perfectly as possible.

- A. S. Byatt

Showing: 1 out of 4 Pages

Join us on

Newsletter

Subscribe to our weekly Newsletter and stay tuned.