A. S. Byatt Quotes

I know I stand visibly onstage, but my function is still unseen, because I rarely see the immediate results of what I am saying or doing or writing.

It's happening right now... it's just not on film, it's not being recorded.

It's not the one-half that's never been told; it's the three-quarters.

I think most of the impact I have over time most people will not actually know about.

In any novel I write, I have in my mind several things which happened in the protagonist's past which I never mention in the book.

You will remember when a bird crashed through the window and fell to the floor. You will remember, those of you who were there, how it jerked its wings before dying, and left a spot of blood on the floor after it was removed. But who among you was first to notice the negative bird it left in the window? Who first saw the shadow that the bird left behind, the shadow that drew blood from any finger that dared to trace it, the shadow that was better proof of the bird's existence than the bird ever was?

I really believe it's the moments we can't talk about that become the rest of our lives. It's the moments we can't process by telling a story that destroy us in the end.

All invisible from where we stand the connections come to pass, and though too strong to comprehend they affect us not the less.

Do certain events in our lives leave a permanent mark, freezing a piece of us in time, and that becomes a touchstone that we measure the rest of our lives against?

What you cannot see in the world is far more powerful than anything you can see.

There is only one thing which interests me vitally now, and that is the recording of all that which is omitted in books

After I am dead I would like people to say: 'Beuys understood the historical situation. He altered the course of events'. I hope in the right direction.

Future years will never know the seething hell and the black infernal background, the countless minor scenes and interiors of the secession war; and it is best they should not. The real war will never get in the books.

Some events take a lifetime to reveal their damage and influence.

The past stays on you the way powdered sugar stays on your fingers. Some people can get rid of it but it’s still there, the events and things that pushed you to where you are now.

we lived in the gaps between the stories

It would be easier to pay off the national debt overnight than to neutralise the long-range effects of our national stupidity

I always judge people who spend a lot of time in public office say they care about things, if the day after they leave, they no longer talk about them, then I don't think they cared much about them.

He will be beloved when he is no more.

Congrats to Clare Farnsworth on a legendary career! One of the all-time great Seahawks! We will miss you Clare!

The ultimate judgment of a work of art, whether it be a masterpiece or a lesser event, must be solely in terms of its artistic success and not on Freudian guesswork.

The dearest events are summer-rain.

Only speak words that make souls stronger -\-\ for once words are spoken, they may be forgiven, but may be not forgotten.

Your first book already defines you, while you are really far from being defined. And this definition is something you may then carry with you for the rest of your life, trying to confirm it or extend or correct or deny it; but you can never eliminate it.

We can be, and should be, the masters of events, and not their playthings.