A. S. Byatt
A. S. Byatt
Dame Antonia Susan Duffy DBE– known as A. S. Byatt – is an English novelist, poet and Booker Prize winner. In 2008, The Times newspaper named her on its list of the 50 greatest British writers since 1945...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth24 August 1936
writing poison terrible
It's a terrible poison, writing.
self moral-beliefs looks
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.
art thinking important
I think there are a lot more important things than art in the world. But not to me.
feelings mind way
I like feeling my way into different minds and experiences. It comes naturally and always has.
writing research pieces
I did a lot of my writing as though I was an academic, doing some piece of research as perfectly as possible.
hate thinking curiosity
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.
children
I was no good at being a child.
running reality world
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.
art simple together
Our days weave together the simple pleasures of daily life, which we should never take for granted, and the higher pleasures of Art and Thought which we may now taste as we please, with none to forbid or criticise.
lying book air
Do I do as false prophets do and puff air into simulacra? Am I a Sorcerer--like Macbeth's witches--mixing truth and lies in incandescent shapes? Or am I a kind of very minor scribe of a prophetic Book--telling such truth as in me lies, with aid of such fiction as I acknowledge mine, as Prospero acknowledged Caliban.
people listening age
Once you get older, people stop listening to what you say. It's very agreeable once you get used to it.
deceived things-are-not-what-they-seem seems
Things are not what they seem.
surprising
Everything is surprising, rightly seen.
people grace feelings
She didn't like to be talked about. Equally, she didn't like not to be talked about, when the high-minded chatter rushed on as though she was not there. There was no pleasing her, in fact. She had the grace, even at eleven, to know there was no pleasing her. She thought a lot, analytically, about other people's feelings, and had only just begun to realize that this was not usual, and not reciprocated.