Penelope Lively
Penelope Lively
Dame Penelope Margaret Lively DBE FRSLis a British writer of fiction for both children and adults. She has won both the Booker Prizeand the Carnegie Medal for British children's books...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionChildren's Author
Date of Birth17 March 1933
Penelope Lively quotes about
different london revolutionary
I can walk about London and see a society that seems an absolutely revolutionary change from the 1950s, that seems completely and utterly different, and then I can pick up on something where you suddenly see that it's not.
writing fiction mixtures
I'm writing another novel and I know what I'm going to do after, which may be something more like this again, maybe some strange mixture of fiction and non-fiction.
children war boys
Wars are fought by children. Conceived by their mad demonic elders, and fought by boys.
money people doe
People die, but money never does.
mind want sparks
You have this comet trail of your own lived life, sparks from which arrive in the head all the time, whether you want them or not - life has been lived but it is still all going on, in the mind for better and for worse.
past years privacy
The past is our ultimate privacy; we pile it up, year by year, decade by decade, it stows itself away, with its perverse random recall system.
stuff messages logic
Mythology is much better stuff than history. It has form; logic; a message.
history natural circumstances
History unravels; circumstances, following their natural inclination, prefer to remain ravelled.
fashion believe people
There's a fearful term that's in fashion at the moment - closure. People apparently believe it is desirable and attainable.
reality fiction endure
the days of our lives vanish utterly, more insubstantial than if they had been invented. Fiction can seem more enduring than reality.
children giving design
But who knows their own child? You know bits - certain predictable reactions, a handful of familiar qualities. The rest is impenetrable. And quite right too. You give birth to them. You do not design them.
spring childhood church
I can remember the lush spring excitement of language in childhood. Sitting in church, rolling it around my mouth like marbles--tabernacle and pharisee and parable, tresspass and Babylon and covenant.
believe maturity childhood
I believe that the experience of childhood is irretrievable. All that remains, for any of us, is a headful of brilliant frozen moments, already dangerously distorted by the wisdoms of maturity.
book reading people
If people don't read, that's their choice; a lifelong book habit may itself be some sort of affliction.