I am suspicious of writers who go looking for issues to address. Writers are neither preachers nor journalists. Journalists know much more than most writers about what's going on in the world. And if you want to change things, you do journalism.
More Quotes by A. S. Byatt
What I need to write well is a combination of heat, light and solitude.
In my mind's eye, Shakespeare is a huge, hot sea-beast, with fire in his veins and ice on his claws and inscrutable eyes, who looks like an inchoate hump under the encrustations of live barnacle-commentaries, limpets and trailing weeds.
Where would we be without inhibitions? They're quite useful things when you look at some of the things humans do if they lose them.
I watch a lot of sport on television. I only watch certain sports, and I only watch them live - I don't think I've ever been able to watch a replay of a match or game of which the result was already decided. I feel bound to cheat and look up what can be looked up.
It's because I'm a feminist that I can't stand women limiting other women's imaginations. It really makes me angry.
There is a certain aesthetic pleasure in trying to imagine the unimaginable and failing, if you are a reader.