Quotes by Penelope Lively

Penelope Lively

All history, of course, is the history of wars.

Courses

History

War

And in another year everything will be different yet again. It is always like that, and always will be; you are forever standing on the brink, in a place where you cannot see ahead; there is nothing of which to be certain except what lies behind. This should be terrifying, but somehow it is not.

Forever

Lying

Years

Equally, we require a collective past – hence the endless reinterpretations of history, frequently to suit the perceptions of the present.

Past

Perception

Suits

Every novel generates its own climate, when you get going.

Climate

Novel

Writing

Forever, reading has been central, the necessary fix, the support system. Her life has been informed by reading. She has read not just for distraction, sustenance, to pass the time, but she has read in a state of primal innocence, reading for enlightenment, for instruction, even. … She is as much a product of what she has read as of the way in which she has lived; she is like millions of others built by books, for whom books are an essential foodstuff, who could starve without.

Book

Reading

Support Systems

Giving presents is one of the most possessive things we do, did you realize that? It’s the way we keep a hold on other people. Plant ourselves in their lives.

Giving

People

Way

Grief-stricken. Stricken is right; it is as though you had been felled. Knocked to the ground; pitched out of life and into something else.

Grief

History unravels; circumstances, following their natural inclination, prefer to remain ravelled.

Circumstances

History

Natural

I didn’t think I had anything particular to say, but I thought I might have something to say to children.

Children

Might

Thinking

I didn’t want it to be a book that made pronouncements.

Book

Made

Want

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Agnostic

Bombs

Book

Broken

Century

Children

Choices

Circumstances

Cities

Climate

Contingency

Courses

Everything Happens For A Reason

Forever

Giving

Glasses

Grateful

Grief

Happenstance

History

Identity

Ifs

Kings

Linear

Links

Logic

Loss

Lost Friendship

Lying

Made

Memories

Messages

Mets

Might

Natural

Needs

Novel

Operations

Past

People

Perception

Photography

Preoccupation

Reading

Science

Self

Social

Stuff

Suits

Support Systems

The Future Blueprint

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The Home Therapist: Anti Anxiety

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The Autobiography

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The Behaviour Diary

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The Dating Diary

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The Relationship Therapist

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Quotes by Penelope Lively

Penelope Lively

All history, of course, is the history of wars.

And in another year everything will be different yet again. It is always like that, and always will be; you are forever standing on the brink, in a place where you cannot see ahead; there is nothing of which to be certain except what lies behind. This should be terrifying, but somehow it is not.

Equally, we require a collective past – hence the endless reinterpretations of history, frequently to suit the perceptions of the present.

Every novel generates its own climate, when you get going.

Giving presents is one of the most possessive things we do, did you realize that? It’s the way we keep a hold on other people. Plant ourselves in their lives.

Grief-stricken. Stricken is right; it is as though you had been felled. Knocked to the ground; pitched out of life and into something else.

History unravels; circumstances, following their natural inclination, prefer to remain ravelled.

I didn’t think I had anything particular to say, but I thought I might have something to say to children.

I didn’t want it to be a book that made pronouncements.

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Topics by Penelope Lively

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The Future Blueprint

The Home Therapist: Anti Anxiety

The Autobiography

The Behaviour Diary

The Dating Diary

The Relationship Therapist

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