38 A. S. Byatt Quotes for You to Enjoy

A. S. Byatt

English Novelist

Born: Aug 24, 1936

About Always People Think World You

Related authors: Aldous Huxley Charles Dickens E. M. Forster J. R. R. Tolkien Thomas Hardy William Golding William Makepeace Thackeray

I always say I write my own novels and the characters don't take control of me, but in fact, I look at the characters in the early stages and I think, 'What is he or she like,' and they slowly come together and they become the person they are. A. S. Byatt

Me Together Become Own Control Think Say Characters Slowly My Own Fact Write Take He He Or She Come Like Look She Always Person In Fact Stages Novels Early

The more research you do, the more at ease you are in the world you're writing about. It doesn't encumber you, it makes you free. A. S. Byatt

You Writing World Free Research Ease About More Makes

I think my characters with my fingers, I think my characters with my guts. But when I say I think them, that is what I do, I feel them with the sympathetic neurons and I work out with my brain what it is that I am trying to write about, or I can't do it. A. S. Byatt

Work Think Say Out Characters About Guts Fingers Neurons Write Feel Am Brain Trying Them Work Out Sympathetic

I'm quite interested in my own mental processes, simply because I'm a failed scientist, and because I'm interested in how the brain and the mind works, and I like to avoid easy descriptions. A. S. Byatt

Mind Own Easy Mental My Own Mental Processes Simply Failed Like Because How Scientist Brain Quite Processes Interested Avoid Works Descriptions

I like feeling my way into different minds and experiences. It comes naturally and always has. A. S. Byatt

Feeling Minds Way Like Always Different Experiences Naturally

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

Love Time Religion History Science Yourself Mind Too Much Living Think Too Philosophy About Suppose Most Terribly Sort Because Up Personal Grew Literature Much

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

You Little Things Painting Plot See About Through Shapes Like Looks Learn Sort Always Builds How Making Came Historians Up Tiny Different Fiction Whereas Happen Little Certain Certain Things Map Novelist Different Things Things

I hated being a novelist when I was 20 - I had nothing to write about. A. S. Byatt

Nothing Hated About Write Had Being Novelist

America is full of readers of all different sorts who love books in many different ways, and I keep meeting them. And I think editors should look after them, and make less effort to please people who don't actually like books. A. S. Byatt

Love People Think Meeting Please Books Ways Like Look Make Sort Readers Editors Effort America Different After Them Should Full Less Who Many Keep Different Ways Actually

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 clever enough, have it revealed by the all-powerful tale-teller at the end of the book? It is something to do with being reduced to, and comforted by, playing by the rules. A. S. Byatt

Death Book Clever Enough Pleasure Rules Solution Find All-Powerful Something Through Take Puzzle Comforted Revealed Reduced End May Being Which Packaged Clues Satisfactory Why Neatly Gruesome Playing

I have never been able to read Agatha Christie - the pleasure is purely in the puzzle, and the reader is toyed with by someone who didn't decide herself who the killer was until the end of the writing. A. S. Byatt

Writing Herself Pleasure Killer Able Purely Someone Never Puzzle Until Toyed Read Reader Been End Decide Agatha Christie Who

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