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65 quotes by A. S. Byatt

Dame Antonia Susan Duffy, DBE, known as A. S. Byatt (/ˈbaɪ.ət/ BY-ət; born 24 August 1936), is an English novelist, poet and Booker Prize winner. In 2008, The Times newspaper named her on its list of the 50 greatest British writers since 1945.
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There are things I take sides about, like capital punishment, which it seems to me there is only one side about: it is evil. But there are two or... →

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As a little girl, I didn't like stories about little girls. I liked stories about dragons and beasts and princes and princesses and fear and... →

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For a long time, I felt instinctively irritated - sometimes repelled - by scientific friends' automatic use of the word 'mechanism' for... →

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Biographies are no longer written to explain or explore the greatness of the great. They redress balances, explore secret weaknesses, demolish... →

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You can understand a lot about yourself by working out which fairytale you use to present your world to yourself in.

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I think vestigially there's a synesthete in me, but not like a real one who immediately knows what colour Wednesday is.

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Why do we take pleasure in gruesome death, neatly packaged as a puzzle to which we may find a satisfactory solution through clues - or if we are not... →

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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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I am a profound pessimist both about life and about human relations and about politics and ecology. Humans are inadequate and stupid creatures who... →

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In my mind's eye, Shakespeare is a huge, hot sea-beast, with fire in his veins and ice on his claws and inscrutable eyes, who looks like an... →

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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 acquired a hunger for fairy tales in the dark days of blackout and blitz in the Second World War.

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Cyclists. I really hate them. I wish they would not be so self-righteous and realise they are a danger to pedestrians. I wish cyclists would not... →

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