A. S. Byatt Quotes & Sayings (Page 3)

“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.”

“I don't think it is an easy thing to write and expect to be commercial, even if you are from Venus and a hermaphrodite.”

“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.”

“I have a dreadful fear that the more you try to prevent revealing the self, the more you do.”

“It's a terrible poison, writing.”

“It's because I'm a feminist that I can't stand women limiting other women's imaginations. It really makes me angry.”

“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.”

“In novels in general - and also on the television - we do live in a world where bodies is what we are. We do not talk about the spirit or the soul, and there is a sense that we no longer talk about beliefs, either Freudian or Marxist.”

“My professional and human obsession is the nature of language, and my best relationships are with other writers. In many ways, I know George Eliot better than I know my husband.”

“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.”