Lionel Shriver quotes

I was mortified by the prospect of becoming hopelessly trapped in someone else's story. (Lionel Shriver)
Children live in the same world we do. To kid ourselves that we can shelter them from it isn't just naive it's a vanity. View quote
Lionel Shriver
In a country that doesn't discriminate between fame and infamy, the latter presents itself as plainly more achievable. View quote
Lionel Shriver
How lucky we are, when we're spared what we think we want! View quote
Lionel Shriver
A lot of people get so hung up on what they can't have that they don't think for a second about whether they really want it. View quote
Lionel Shriver
Only a country that feels invulnerable can afford political turmoil as entertainment. View quote
Lionel Shriver
But indifference would ultimately commend itself as a devastating weapon. View quote
Lionel Shriver
It's an apathy so absolute that it's like a hole you might fall in. View quote
Lionel Shriver
The secret is that there is no secret. View quote
Lionel Shriver
The good life doesn't knock on the door. Joy is a job. View quote
Lionel Shriver
You can call it innocence, or you can call it gullibility, but Celia made the most common mistake of the good-hearted: she assumed that everyone else was just like her. (Lionel Shriver)
Expectations are dangerous when they are both too high and unformed. View quote
Lionel Shriver
People seem to get used to anything, and it is a short step from adaptation to attachment. View quote
Lionel Shriver
The existence of other people is essentially awkward. View quote
Lionel Shriver
We'd been assured it wouldn't be painful, though she might experience 'discomfort,' a term beloved of the medical profession that seems to be a synonym for agony that isn't yours. View quote
Lionel Shriver
I didn't care about anything. And there's a freedom in apathy, a wild, dizzying liberation on which you can almost get drunk. You can do anything. Ask Kevin. View quote
Lionel Shriver
Funny how you dig yourself into a hole by the teaspoon. View quote
Lionel Shriver
... You can only subject people to anguish who have a conscience. You can only punish people who have hopes to frustrate or attachments to sever; who worry what you think of them. You can really only punish people who are already a little bit good. View quote
Lionel Shriver
It's far less important to me to be liked these days than to be understood. View quote
Lionel Shriver
Lovers communicate not inside sentences, but between them. Passion lurks within interstice. It is grouting rather than bricks. View quote
Lionel Shriver
Kevin was a shell game in which all three cups were empty. (Lionel Shriver)
That boy hardly needed a mask when his naked face was already impenetrable. View quote
Lionel Shriver
Funny how the nature of a normal day is the first memory to fade. View quote
Lionel Shriver
Built like an oak tree, against which I could pitch my pillow and read; mornings, I could curl into the crook of your branches. View quote
Lionel Shriver
Everything people do that doesn't work has to be somebody else's fault. Next time you know, geezers'll be suing the government for getting old and kids'll be taking their mommies to court because they came out ugly. View quote
Lionel Shriver