11 Quotes by Margot Livesey

The pleasure of this kind of narrative is not that we think we are reading about the real world (although the story usually does map onto our world fairly closely), but rather that the wings of symmetry are unfolding around us; briefly we are on a planet where, as E.M. Forster says, there are no secrets and human behavior makes sense. I call this 'fiction.

We are our own terra incognita, the country on maps where dragons lurk.

If someone tells you a lie, they're not telling you the truth, but they are telling you something. It just takes longer to figure out what.

She knew she oughtn't to scold but she couldn't bear such a hyperbole. People couldn't live without food and air or shelter and money. Romantic love was an extra, nice if it came along, but definitely superfluous to the main requirements of existence.

A vivid portrait of a teenage girl and her family in disarray. Meredith is a wonderful narrator, witty, feisty, full of yearning, and the story she tells is as complicated as life itself. This is a richly satisfying novel.

Barry recounts all this in prose of often startling beauty. Just as he describes people stopping in the street to look at Roseanne, so I often found myself stopping to look at the sentences he gave her, wanting to pause and copy them down.

Passonate, irreverent, utterly relevant, Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk offers an unforgettable portrait of a reluctant hero. Ben Fountain writes like a man inspired and his razor sharp exploration of our contemporary ironies will break your heart.

If you feel yourself to be a full member in the world, you probably won’t turn to writing, because other methods of communication, more direct methods, will strike you as being more available.

As far as I’m concerned it’s the other way round. We repeat what we remember. Only forgetfulness sets us free.