Lionel Shriver Quotes

I don't get far enough into a boring book to hate it.

You try to figure out things to keep yourself interested. It's very easy to get lulled.

Let's stop playing with ourselves and get on with the entertainment, shall we?

When there's not much to do, you find things to do that get you in trouble.

I'd sit at my kitchen table and start scanning help-wanted ads on my laptop, but then a browser tab would blink and I'd get distracted and follow a link to a long magazine article about genetically modified wine grapes. Too long, actually, so I'd add it to my reading list. Then I'd follow another link to a book review. I'd add the review to my reading list, too, then download the first chapter of the book—third in a series about vampire police. Then, help-wanted ads forgotten, I'd retreat to the living room, put my laptop on my belly, and read all day. I had a lot of free time.

The reason of idleness and of crime is the deferring of our hopes. Whilst we are waiting, we beguile the time with jokes, with sleep, with eating, and with crimes.

I stay out too late, got nothing in my brain.

For some reason, television still bores me. Even the best shows.

Antonio- "Just in time, Pete. Five more minutes of reading this and she'd have been in a coma." Peter- "Are we such bad company that you'd rather hide out in here reading that old thing?

My weak spot is that I don't like analyzing so I tend to be a bit lazy; I tend to get bored quickly, which means I must be boring.

TV is no longer the best alternative to boredom. To kids not old enough for Snapchat, music is the best alternative to boredom. For Snapchat users, it's the best alternative to boredom.

I hate golf.

I hate not working. It's that lack of purpose. It becomes very easy to lie in until midday.

All I do when I write scripts is think about food: 'Have I worked long enough to justify a walk to the kitchen?'

It's easier to sit and watch TV than it is to get up and read a book.

I am tired of talking about what I do or what I am going to do.

Man, I hated school. I'd stare at the buttons on the teacher's shirt the whole class.

Perhaps I overemphasized the value of keeping busy.... I liked to imagine that I was incapable of doing nothing for afternoons myself, but maybe what disturbed me was that I was capable of it. I feared this was a knack one could get the hang of rather readily, and it was therefore now lurking in my house waiting for me to pick it up like a winter flu.

Boredom is a certain sign that we are allowing our faculties to rust in idleness.

She probably gave up and started playing Minesweeper." [...] We reached the cafe and found Sydney bent over her laptop, with a barely eaten Danish and what was probably her fourth cup of coffee. We slid into seats beside her. "How's it—hey! You ARE playing Minesweeper!

You ever find yourself being lazy for no reason at all? Like, you pick up your mail, you go in your house, you realize you have a letter for a neighbor. You ever just look at the letter and go "Hm. Looks like they're never getting this. It'll take too much energy to go back outside. I'm gonna get that to them later on. Right now I gotta watch some 'Love Connection.' They got some new host on there."

Would you like to watch TV or get between the sheets and contemplate this violent freeway, would you like something to eat would you like to learn to fly would ya, would you like to see me try

No music + Bad TV = Bad mood & no pages.

I'm sorry I can't get into Scooby Doo on any level.

Politics is a thankless occupation; I have no interest in it at all.