64 Quotes by A.S. Byatt

The sea was as black as basalt, covered with churning foam, ice-green, clotted cream, shivering high walls full of needles of air going up and up and crashing down on other walls of water on the crumbling coasts of the world.

You will not be here--I shall not be here--much longer.''Let us not think of time.''We have reached Faust's non-plus. We say to every moment "Verweile doch, du bist so sch&oumln," and if we are not immediately damned, the stars move still, time runs, the clock will strike. But it is open to us to regret each minute as it passes.''We shall be exhausted.''And is not that a good state to end in?

She is afraid of divorce, which will free her, as she was not enough afraid of marriage, which trapped her.

Narrative is one of the best intoxicants or tranquilisers.

They valued themselves. Once, they knew God valued them. Then they began to think there was no God, only blind forces. So they valued themselves, they loved themselves and attended to their natures—

My Solitude is my Treasure, the best thing I have. I hesitate to go out. If you opened the little gate, I would not hop away—but oh how I sing in my gold cage

But if there are spirits, I do not see why they are not everywhere, or may not be presumed to be so. You could argue that their voices may well be muffled by solid brick walls and thick plush furnishings and house-proud antimacassars. But the mahogany-polishers and the drapers' clerks are as much in need of salvation - as much desirous of assurance of a afterlife - as poets or peasants, in the last resort.

Therefore,' said Loki the mockery, to the snake his daughter, 'we need to know everything, or at least as much as we can. The gods have secret runes to help in the hunt, or give victory in battle. They hammer, they slash. They do not study. I study. I know.

Val was eating cornflakes. She ate very little else, at home. They were light, they were pleasant, they were comforting, and then after a day or two they were like cotton wool.