Penelope Lively Quotes

Conventional forms of narrative allow for different points of view, but for this book I wanted a structure whereby each of the main characters contributed a distinctive version of the story.

Penelope Lively

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• During workouts, I listen to Pandora, and I like the '90s pop stations. 'The Backstreet Boys' is fun!

  

  Kacy Catanzaro
  • Fun
  • Like
  • Listen

• My interior is very, very dense - Proustian-looking, sort of Henry James. The walls are covered in pictures, and I transformed the big drawing room into a library lined with books.

  

  Hamish Bowles
  • Drawing
  • Library
  • Walls

• There are minds so impatient of inferiority that their gratitude is a species of revenge, and they return benefits, not because recompense is a pleasure, but because obligation is a pain.

  

  Samuel Johnson
  • Pain
  • Gratitude
  • Revenge

• It's almost like he's started to sound even more exotic the more people started doing him. I don't know why, but there's just something about Al Gore that makes me laugh.

  

  Dana Carvey
  • People
  • Why
  • Sound

• Software-industry battles are fought by highly paid and out-of-shape nerds furiously pounding computer keyboards while they guzzle diet Coke. The stakes aren't very dramatic. Life? Liberty? The pursuit of happiness? Nope, it's about stock options.

  

  Nathan Myhrvold
  • Life
  • Happiness
  • Stock

• Control of a company does not carry with it the ability to control the price of its stock.

  

  J. Paul Getty
  • Control
  • Company
  • Stock

• If you look at all the vampires in the past, they were sort of decrepit old men. Stephanie Meyers just made it for a new audience. All the vampires are now young men and she describes them as not being ugly.

  

  Daniel Cudmore
  • Past
  • Audience
  • Young

• My grandmother's first husband was a spiritualist medium. What fascinates me about that is the balance between conviction and sincerity and trickery, which is also something that novelists are very familiar with.

  

  Pat Barker
  • Me
  • Balance
  • Husband

• We shot 'Telusa Telusa' song in Bolivia. It took us 50 hours to get to the location. We shot in high altitudes, and oxygen cylinders were kept handy.

  

  Rakul Preet Singh
  • High
  • Song
  • Location

• Contrary to what professional economists will typically tell you, economics is not a science. All economic theories have underlying political and ethical assumptions, which make it impossible to prove them right or wrong in the way we can with theories in physics or chemistry.

  

  Ha-Joon Chang
  • Science
  • Political
  • Professional

• We think of Washington as the defensive-minded pragmatist who won the Revolution by avoiding unnecessary risks on the battlefield. But that was not how he started out.

  

  Nathaniel Philbrick
  • Think
  • Revolution
  • Risks

• I see many black males grasping for some thread of hope. There are so many destructive practices, glimpses into a psychic abyss. That must be very frightening.

  

  Yusef Komunyakaa
  • Hope
  • Black
  • See

• I sort of understood that when I first started: that you shouldn't repeat a success. Very often you're going to, and maybe the first time you do, it works. And you love it. But then you're trapped.

  

  Jack Nicholson
  • Time
  • Love
  • Success

• I'm not afraid of change, let's put it that way.

  

  Hannah Simone
  • Way
  • Change
  • Afraid

• When James Bond gets old, you get rid of him and bring a new James Bond in.

  

  Irwin Winkler
  • Old
  • Him
  • Bond

• My senior year of high school, I got into UCLA, but my family couldn't afford it.

  

  Adam DeVine
  • Family
  • School
  • High

• My mother was an actress and my voice teacher, an incredible voice teacher. My biological father is an actor, and my stepfather, who raised me along with my mother, is a psychotherapist. I was always supported in creative ventures.

  

  Laura Benanti
  • Mother
  • Father
  • Teacher

• We really tried hard not to make it a cricket book, it appeals to a much wider community.

  

  Hansie Cronje
  • Book
  • Community
  • Cricket

• If I were to write a book about the progress of getting to a third film, it would be a long one.

  

  Colin Firth
  • Long
  • Book
  • Progress

• Will you tell them about that far off and mythical land And how a child to the virgin came? Will you tell them that the reason why we murdered Everything upon the surface of the world Is so we can stand right up and say we did it in his name?

  

  Andy Partridge
  • Up
  • World
  • Why

• Conventional forms of narrative allow for different points of view, but for this book I wanted a structure whereby each of the main characters contributed a distinctive version of the story.

  

  Penelope Lively
  • Different
  • Book