Quote

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.

Lionel Shriver

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Lionel Shriver
Age: 67
Born: 1957
Born: May 18
Journalist
Novelist
Writer
Gastonia
North Carolina
Margaret Ann Shriver
Margaret Shriver
Wouldn
Synonym
Term
Discomfort
Though
Assured
Experience
Agony
Seems
Beloved
Might
Medical
Profession
Painful

More quotes by Lionel Shriver

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When Mexico enjoys an economic boom while the U.S. is in dire fiscal straights, it seemed perfectly credible that Mexico would not roll out the welcome mat for unemployed Americans.
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That boy hardly needed a mask when his naked face was already impenetrable.
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Giving anyone anything takes courage, since so many presents backfire. A gift conspicuously at odds with your tastes serves only to betray that the benefactor has no earthly clue who you are.
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Change is like that: you are no longer where you were you are not yet where you will get you are nowhere exactly.
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A boy is a dangerous animal.
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...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.
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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.
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Kevin was a shell game in which all three cups were empty.
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We are not attracted to people because they are virtuous. In fact, there's something a little creepy about people who are too good. There is a big draw to people who are successful at breaking the rules. That means we end up admiring a lot of people that we think we shouldn't.
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For women, marriages foreclosed often resulted in an accumulation of booty for men, these failed projects of implausible optimism were more likely to manifest themselves in material lack. It was hard to resist the metaphorical impression that women got to keep the past itself, whereas men were simply robbed of it.
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I was mortified by the prospect of becoming hopelessly trapped in someone else's story.
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Maybe the greatest favour a spouse can tender is to overlook what you can't.
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I seem to remember even from when I was very young that when you loved someone you also hated them for making you love them, since loving someone is so incredibly humiliating.
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Besides, I'd heard too many Karen Carpenter tales at Gladstone PTA meetings, and they often took the form of boasts. The prestigious diagnosis of anorexia seemed much coveted not only by the students but by their mothers, who would compete over whose daughter ate less. No wonder the poor girls were a mess.
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The existence of other people is essentially awkward.
Lionel Shriver
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...hoarders of guilty secrets are inevitably consumed with appearances.
Lionel Shriver
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It isn't very nice to admit, but domestic violence has its uses. So raw and unleashed, it tears away the veil of civilization that comes between us as much as it makes life possible. A poor substitute for the sort of passion we like to extol perhaps, but real love shares more in common with hatred and rage than it does with geniality or politeness.
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Size is relative. If everyone is fat, no-one is fat
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it is always difficult to impress the ignorant.
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Notoriety is cheap. It's just easier to get noticed by doing something bad.
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