I find the attempt to find things out, which scientists are possessed by, to be as human as breathing, or feeding, or sex. And so the science has to be in the novels as science and not just as metaphors. A. S. Byatt Read Quote
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 three sides to sexual harassment, and the moment you get into particular cases, there is injustice in every conceivable direction. It’s a mess. A. S. Byatt Read Quote
You learn a lot about love before you ever get there. You learn at least as much about love from books as you do from watching your parents. A. S. Byatt Read Quote
I sort of mind living in a time when most of the literature is terribly personal. I suppose it’s because I grew up on a love of history, philosophy, science and religion, but not to think too much about yourself. A. S. Byatt Read Quote
I have a dreadful fear that the more you try to prevent revealing the self, the more you do. A. S. Byatt Read Quote
If you want to teach women to be great writers, you should show them the best, and the best was often done by men. It was more often done by men than by women, if we’re going to be truthful. A. S. Byatt Read Quote
One of the reasons I’ve gotten so attached to talking to scientists is that… they know there is a reality. A. S. Byatt Read Quote
You learn different things through fiction. Historians are always making a plot about how certain things came to happen. Whereas a novelist looks at tiny little things and builds up a sort of map, like a painting, so that you see the shapes of things. A. S. Byatt Read Quote
I am suspicious of writers who go looking for issues to address. Writers are neither preachers nor journalists. Journalists know much more than most writers about what’s going on in the world. And if you want to change things, you do journalism. A. S. Byatt Read Quote
I like to write about painting because I think visually. I see my writing as blocks of color before it forms itself. I think I also care about painting because I’m not musical. Painting to me is not a metaphor for writing, but something people do that can never be reduced to words. A. S. Byatt Read Quote
