I have buckets of sympathy for the obese, often subject to cruelty, ridicule, denunciation, and contempt. Lionel Shriver Read Quote
Dieting is odious and can require years of determination and sacrifice. I entirely understand the impulse to say, ‘Screw it,’ and have another piece of cake. Lionel Shriver Read Quote
Edith Wharton was a natural story-teller. As plots do in real life, hers flow directly from character. Her prose is so effortlessly elegant that you’re rarely aware as they purl by that the sentences are so pretty. More concerned with what is put than how it is put, she also understood that you only say anything at all when you say it well. Lionel Shriver Read Quote
Ever since Hiroshima, we’ve been faced with the depressing fact that you cannot un-invent something. Lionel Shriver Read Quote
I read ‘The Bell Jar’ as an adolescent and, like most teenagers, had no problem identifying with a young woman who had everything going for her – looks, talent, opportunity, with her ‘whole life ahead of her,’ yadda, yadda, yadda – yet was spiraling into misery. Lionel Shriver Read Quote
In economics, ‘competitiveness’ does not describe Barack Obama’s insistence on not only being president of the U.S. but also beating his staff at bowling. Lionel Shriver Read Quote
I do occasionally encounter a British business that delivers what and when, and for exactly the price, they promised. But commercial paragons in the U.K. are rare. Lionel Shriver Read Quote
Few Amazon punters will explore a book with the depth of an 800-word review. Lionel Shriver Read Quote
I might defend the reviewing trade, but a handful of haughty hired hands no longer having the last word on books is not a bad thing. Lionel Shriver Read Quote