Penelope Lively Quotes

I didn't write any fiction until I was past thirty.

I didn't start writing my own books until I was 40.

I came into my own, you might say, in terms of putting out my first record quite late in life. And yet there's some authors and photographers and even probably recording artists that didn't really hit their stride until their mid-50s.

Over the years, I grew up as a person and made mistakes and had a great time and had a baby, kind of grew as a person and as an artist.

I've done a lot of growing up since the age of 16 and I really wanted that to be reflected in my music.

Writing, for all that it's harder than nursing ever was, is also more joyous and more fun and a lot less dangerous. And the major themes of my life have become the major themes of my writing, too - so it has all worked out pretty well.

I didn't get on TV until I was 30, which is really fortunate because you are who you are at that point.

I started writing seriously about 1960, at the fairly advanced age of 30.

Right now, writing for me is most rewarding because I'm old enough now to have something to say, which probably wasn't always the case.

I didn't start drama school until I was 20, and I don't think I would have gotten nearly as much out of it had I gone when I was 18. I didn't show up there to please anyone. After I was accepted, I wrote, 'The Audition's Over' and put it on the door of my dorm.

I think the range of my life shows in my work.

I'm a late bloomer. Even in high school, everyone else was charging ahead, and I didn't come into my own until very late. I feel that's true in cinema, too. I didn't even start 'Metropolitan' until I was 37.

What happened in my life made me a better artist.

If you are a good writer you use your life experience to do something different than someone who is 20-years-old can do. That is where you get your power. That is our power as a group. I am not trying to make the same music I made 10 years ago.

Things don't have to come to you in your youth. It's fine for them to come to you when you get older. That's a motto in my household.

I began writing seriously in my mid-20s and didn't publish my first book until I was 41.

All that I know I learned after I was thirty.

The first audience that you have when writing a book is you.

It's a little silly to finally learn how to write at this age. But I long ago realized I was secretly sincere.

Really, I was such a late bloomer, I really didn't learn how to be me until I was in my late '40s, which is when I started playing roles that were closer to me.

I used to think, 'How can I write my life story? I'm still living it.'

I kind of knew it wasn't going to be until my 30s that I really hit my stride as an actor.

Recently I read the stories I wrote in my early 20s, to put in a volume. And here is this brittle young woman, writing about marriage as, not the worst thing, but the most boring thing that could happen to a person. Now I think I was wrong. I like to be proven wrong.

The further you go, what, I'm gonna wait til I'm 80? Naw, I'm tellin' my story now. I was just moved. I was moved to tell my story. You know? People write books all the time.

I know that when I grew up I was pretty sheltered, and didn't come to understand much about the world until I was in my really late teens and early twenties, and that process continues.