Quotes from Lionel Shriver

That boy hardly needed a mask when his naked face was already impenetrable.

The existence of other people is essentially awkward.

I was suffering from the delusion that it's the thought that counts.

It's queer how the thing what attracted you to someone is the same as what you come to despise about them

Kevin was a shell game in which all three cups were empty.

In the perfect world, no one would need pre-nups. But all too often, a misty-eyed romancer at the altar transforms into a vengeful, avaricious fiscal predator when the marriage goes south.

Authors are free to ignore their editors' advice. I often avail myself of this veto power - sometimes out of a pigheadedness for which I'll pay the price.

Giving anyone anything takes courage, since so many presents backfire. A gift conspicuously at odds with your tastes serves only to betray that the benefactor has no earthly clue who you are.

For the living, death is thievery.

For the left-leaning, political identity is liable to be closely intertwined with personal identity. The left is collusive, if not presumptuous: should you get on well with leftists at a party, they will blithely assume that you share the same views on the invasion of Iraq, even if all you've talked about is the canapes.

Overly vigorous investigations of ominously ill-defined 'bullying' can themselves constitute a form of bullying.

A manuscript under way always gave me something to do; only while enduring the aimlessness between books was I truly glum.

The most sumptuous experience of ingestion is in-between: remembering the last bite and looking forward to the next one.

When you've been afraid of something for long enough and it comes to pass, the terrible thing is a release. For in the belly of the badness there is no more fear.

Funny how you dig yourself into a hole by the teaspoon.