Deborah Levy Quotes

United Kingdom, Novelist
August 6, 1959

Deborah Levy FRSL is a British novelist, playwright and poet. She initially concentrated on writing for the theatre – her plays were staged by the Royal Shakespeare Company – before focusing on prose fiction. Her early novels included Beautiful Mutants, Swallowing Geography and Billy & Girl. Her more recent fiction has included the Booker-shortlisted novels Swimming Home and Hot Milk, as well as the Booker-longlisted The Man Who Saw Everything and the short story collection Black Vodka.

Also known as Playwright, Poet

I have never got a grip on when the past begins or where it ends, but if cities map the past with statues made from bronze forever frozen in one dignified position, as much as I try to make the past keep still and mind its manners, it moves and murmurs with me through every day.

Deborah Levy
- Position
- Manners
- Grip
To become a WRITER I had to learn to INTERRUPT, to speak up, to speak a little louder, and then LOUDER, and then to just speak in my own voice which is NOT LOUD AT ALL.

Deborah Levy
- Learn
- Speak
- Voice

I realised that the question I had asked myself while writing this book [Swimming Home] was (as surgeons say) very close to the bone: 'What do we do with knowledge that we cannot bear to live with? What do we do with the things we do not want to know?'

Deborah Levy
- Home
- Want
- Knowledge
It was impossible to believe that someone did not want to be saved from their incoherence.

Deborah Levy
She was not a poet. She was a poem.

Deborah Levy
- She
- Poet
- Poem
Be sure to enjoy language, experiment with ways of talking, be exuberant even when you don't feel like it because language can make your world a better place to live.

Deborah Levy
- Language
- Place
- Talking
Life is only worth living because we hope it will get better and we'll all get home safely. But you tried and you did not get home safely. You did not get home at all.

Deborah Levy
- Home
- Better
- Living
When happiness is happening it feels as if nothing else happened before it, it is a sensation that happens only in the present tense.

Deborah Levy