English - Novelist | August 24, 1936 -
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.
A. S. Byatt
PeopleBelieveThinkYouAskFollow
I did a lot of my writing as though I was an academic, doing some piece of research as perfectly as possible.
ResearchWritingDoingPossibleSome
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.
HateCuriosityThinkDoingYouLook
I am a profound pessimist both about life and about human relations and about politics and ecology. Humans are inadequate and stupid creatures who sooner or later make a mess, and those who are trying to do good do a lot more damage than those who are muddling along.
LifeGoodPoliticsI AmStupidMore
I don't understand why, in my work, writing is always so dangerous. It's very destructive. People who write books are destroyers.
WorkPeopleWritingDangerousWhy
I watch a lot of sport on television. I only watch certain sports, and I only watch them live - I don't think I've ever been able to watch a replay of a match or game of which the result was already decided. I feel bound to cheat and look up what can be looked up.
LiveSportsGameThinkResultLook
Reading a newspaper is like reading someone's letters, as opposed to a biography or a history. The writer really does not know what will happen. A novelist needs to feel what that is like.
HistoryReadingFeelSomeoneKnow
If a novelist tells you something she knows or thinks, and you believe her, that is not because either of you think she is God, but because she is doing her work - as a novelist.
WorkGodBelieveThinkDoingYou
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.
StarsThinkUniqueNeverHumanSee
You can understand a lot about yourself by working out which fairytale you use to present your world to yourself in.
YourselfWorldPresentYouOutYour
The point of painting is not really deception or imitation.
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What I need to write well is a combination of heat, light and solitude.
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