A. S. Byatt Quotes

There are perhaps no days of our childhood we lived so fully as those we spent with a favorite book.

Books are like my one and only joy.

I still feel, as I did when I was six or seven, that books are simply the best way to experience a story.

I loved books; I read my childhood away. I was more interested in my interior world.

As a kid, books were my great escape and my salvation.

I have always loved reading. Ever since I was a young girl I had a book by my bed and would get lost in the world of make believe.

I read a lot growing up. It was kind of my comfort, you know; I loved it. I love story. I love narrative. I was academic. I wasn't particularly athletic. I didn't make the drill team. I didn't go out for sports.

I love fantasy. I grew up reading fantasy.

I was alone as a child. I lived in fairytales, adventures, Shakespeare. They are the friends, my books.

If you have a book, you have a friend.

I always knew that I wanted to live with books, even as a child, because we traveled a lot. Home was the book to which I came back every evening.

My favourite author as a child and teenager, and who I still re-read now, is K. M. Peyton. She writes very truthfully; sometimes I'm not sure if I've actually done things or just experienced them in her books.

But, for instance, when I was awfully young, I read all the Oz books. They were an enormous influence on me.

I hope children will be happy with the books I've written, and go on to be readers all of their lives.

Books were my window on the world. Growing up at the Elephant and Castle, which was very rough, my paradise was the library.

Since I was eight years old. I didn't have a TV, so comic books were definitely my television, my soap operas, and all that.

Even as a young child, I was a lover of books and of the spaces in which, as indeed in a sacred temple, books might safely reside.

One of the great things about books is you can afford to do anything.

As a child, I spent a lot of time at the library.

I came from a house full of books, so I took reading for granted. I was an outdoorsy little kid, too, so I got the best of both worlds by taking books up trees and reading there.

My grandmother would give me a beautiful book each year. I especially loved the Beatrix Potter books. They were very detailed. And I promised myself that was what I'd do. I also loved the big words she used. I was excited because I knew what they meant from the context. I put a few big words in for just that reason.

I'd go to the library so I could sit in a big, quiet room and listen to pages being turned. There was a boring librarian who everyone in fifth grade hated. But I loved her because when she would read us stories in her soft voice, she'd turn my head into a snow globe.

I love the magic of movies and television, and I always have since I was kid.

I suppose books are my real passion in life.

When I was about eight, I decided that the most wonderful thing, next to a human being, was a book.