A. S. Byatt quotes - page 2

What I need to write well is a combination of heat, light and solitude. (A. S. Byatt)
The more research you do, the more at ease you are in the world you're writing about. It doesn't encumber you, it makes you free. View quote
A. S. Byatt
I like feeling my way into different minds and experiences. It comes naturally and always has. View quote
A. S. Byatt
I am not an academic who happens to have written a novel. I am a novelist who happens to be quite good academically. View quote
A. S. Byatt
I did a lot of my writing as though I was an academic, doing some piece of research as perfectly as possible. View quote
A. S. Byatt
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. View quote
A. S. Byatt
There is a certain aesthetic pleasure in trying to imagine the unimaginable and failing, if you are a reader. View quote
A. S. Byatt
I hated being a novelist when I was 20 - I had nothing to write about. View quote
A. S. Byatt
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. View quote
A. S. Byatt
I cannot let you burn me up, nor can I resist you. No mere human can stand in a fire and not be consumed. View quote
A. S. Byatt
In England, everyone believes if you think, then you don't feel. But all my novels are about joining together thinking and feeling. (A. S. Byatt)
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. View quote
A. S. Byatt
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. View quote
A. S. Byatt
It's a terrible poison, writing. View quote
A. S. Byatt
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. View quote
A. S. Byatt
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. View quote
A. S. Byatt
I'd like to write the way Matisse paints. View quote
A. S. Byatt
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. View quote
A. S. Byatt
One of the reasons I've gotten so attached to talking to scientists is that... they know there is a reality. View quote
A. S. Byatt
Where would we be without inhibitions? They're quite useful things when you look at some of the things humans do if they lose them. View quote
A. S. Byatt
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)