Quote

They took to silence. They touched each other without comment and without progression. A hand on a hand, a clothed arm, resting on an arm. An ankle overlapping an ankle, as they sat on a beach, and not removed. One night they fell asleep, side by side... He slept curled against her back, a dark comma against her pale elegant phrase.

A. S. Byatt

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A. S. Byatt
Age: 88
Born: 1936
Born: August 24
Literary Critic
Novelist
Poet
University Teacher
Writer
Sheffield
England
Dame Antonia Susan Duffy
Antonia Susan Drabble
Antonia Susan Duffy
Night
Possession
Asleep
Clothed
Hands
Took
Sat
Ankles
Back
Arms
Pale
Resting
Without
Silence
Comment
Slept
Side
Phrases
Progression
Comma
Sides
Fell
Removed
Ankle
Hand
Beach
Elegant
Overlapping
Dark
Touched
Phrase
Curled

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A surprising number of people - including many students of literature - will tell you they haven't really lived in a book since they were children.
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It's because I'm a feminist that I can't stand women limiting other women's imaginations. It really makes me angry.
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Once you get older, people stop listening to what you say. It's very agreeable once you get used to it.
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Where would we be without inhibitions? Theyre quite useful things when you look at some of the things humans do if they lose them.
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Young girls are sad. They like to be it makes them feel strong.
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I acquired a hunger for fairy tales in the dark days of blackout and blitz in the second world war.
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I have a dreadful fear that the more you try to prevent revealing the self the more you do.
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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.
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I think there are a lot more important things than art in the world. But not to me.
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Coherence and closure are deep human desires that are presently unfashionable. But they are always both frightening and enchantingly desirable. Falling in love, characteristically, combs the appearances of the word, and of the particular lover's history, out of a random tangle and into a coherent plot.
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There are things that happen and leave no discernible trace, are not spoken or written of, though it would be very wrong to say that subsequent events go on indifferently, all the same, as though such things had never been.
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I don't only write about English literature I also write about chaos theory and... ants. I can understand ants.
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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.
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Lists are a form of power.
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Narrative is one of the best intoxicants or tranquilisers.
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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.
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Books that change you, even later in life, give you a kind of electrical shock as the world takes a different shape.
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Good writing is always new.
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Independent women must expect more of themselves, since neither men nor other more conventionally domesticated women will hope for anything, or expect any result other than utter failure.
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I like feeling my way into different minds and experiences. It comes naturally and always has.
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