Quote

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.

A. S. Byatt

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Since
Domesticated
Hope
Utter
Women
Result
Anything
Neither
Must
Independent
Men
Expect
Failure
Results
Conventionally

More quotes by A. S. Byatt

Image
…words have been all my life, all my life--this need is like the Spider's need who carries before her a huge Burden of Silk which she must spin out--the silk is her life, her home, her safety--her food and drink too--and if it is attacked or pulled down, why, what can she do but make more, spin afresh, design anew….
A. S. Byatt
Image
I'm more interested in books than people, and I always expect everybody else to be, but they're not.
A. S. Byatt
Image
Lists are a form of power.
A. S. Byatt
Image
You can understand a lot about yourself by working out which fairytale you use to present your world to yourself in.
A. S. Byatt
Image
Only write to me, write to me, I love to see the hop and skip and sudden starts of your ink.
A. S. Byatt
Image
It's because I'm a feminist that I can't stand women limiting other women's imaginations. It really makes me angry.
A. S. Byatt
Image
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.
A. S. Byatt
Image
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.
A. S. Byatt
Image
I don't only write about English literature I also write about chaos theory and... ants. I can understand ants.
A. S. Byatt
Image
I cannot bear not to know the end of a tale. I will read the most trivial things – once commenced – only out of a feverish greed to be able to swallow the ending – sweet or sour – and to be done with what I need never have embarked on. Are you in my case? Or are you a more discriminating reader? Do you lay aside the unprofitable?
A. S. Byatt
Image
I don't see much point in doing things for a pure joke. Every now and then you need a joke, but not so much as the people who spend all their lives constructing joke palaces think you do.
A. S. Byatt
Image
I think there are a lot more important things than art in the world. But not to me.
A. S. Byatt
Image
The reading eye must do the work to make them live, and so it did, again and again, never the same life twice, as the artist had intended.
A. S. Byatt
Image
I think the virtue I prize above all others is curiosity.
A. S. Byatt
Image
I am not an academic who happens to have written a novel. I am a novelist who happens to be quite good academically.
A. S. Byatt
Image
An odd phrase, by heart, he would add, as though poems were stored in the bloodstream.
A. S. Byatt
Image
You are safe with me. I am not at all safe, with you. But I have no desire to be elsewhere.
A. S. Byatt
Image
When I was a child - in wartime, pre-television - books were my life.
A. S. Byatt
Image
Young girls are sad. They like to be it makes them feel strong.
A. S. Byatt
Image
Novels arise out of the shortcomings of History.
A. S. Byatt