194 Quotes by Penelope Lively

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.

Early reading is serendipitous, and rightly so. Gloriously so. Libraries favor serendipity, invite it; the roaming along a shelf, eyeing an unfamiliar name, taking this down, then that – oh, who’s this? Never heard of her – give her a go? That is where, and how, you learn affinity and rejection. You find out what you like by exploring what you do not.

There’s this piece of contemporary mythology that the forties are the best time of your life. A load of cock, so far as I’m concerned.

I’ve always been fascinated by the operation of memory – the way in which it is not linear but fragmented, and its ambivalence.

People are always meaning well,′ said Edward. ‘That’s often the trouble.

There’s a fearful term that’s in fashion at the moment – closure. People apparently believe it is desirable and attainable.

And long gone are the days when a paperback meant a Penguin, pure and simple, let alone when a paperback publisher could confidently market a product with no image at all on the cover – just the title and the author’s name, emphatically lettered. Beautiful.

But who knows their own child? You know bits – certain predictable reactions, a handful of familiar qualities. The rest is impenetrable. And quite right too. You give birth to them. You do not design them.

You have this comet trail of your own lived life, sparks from which arrive in the head all the time, whether you want them or not – life has been lived but it is still all going on, in the mind for better and for worse.