Quotes from Naomi Alderman

I've been a comics fan since my first hit of those gateway drawings: Judy, Asterix, and the TV cartoon 'Spider-Man and his Amazing Friend' - which naturally led me to Spider-Man comics.

One of the hardest challenges posed by the modern world is how to deal with abundance. It's even harder to confront because admitting that it's a problem seems spoiled.

It is a very different feeling to be in a fat body that is moving a lot to one that hardly moves at all. It feels like love. As simple and as joyful as that.

Games don't cause racism. But the real-time chat makes nasty comments hard to moderate and easy to spread.

Too many keep-fit ideas are designed for those who are already fit, and they're just no fun.

Attending a book group is always a salutary experience for a writer. There's no guarantee that the people there will have enjoyed your book, and, as anyone who has taken part in a book group will know, half the fun is in ripping a book you haven't liked to shreds.

We human beings get nervous if we don't know what's going on. It's the rule for creating scary stories: the unknown is always more frightening than the known.

The species will continue, whatever apocalypse we manage to unleash. It just won't be much fun to live through.

As someone who went to school in the '70s and '80s, I can't say that I noticed much of a 'medals for all' culture myself.

We all know that the desire for perfection can get in the way of authenticity and enjoyment; it's the same with games. There's a completist part to many of us that can't rest until we reach the perfect 100% finish point.

I have no wish to offend, but I do think that holy cows need challenging.

I feel powerful when I'm onstage talking to an audience. I like communicating; it feels like my calling in the world. Knowing what you're meant to be doing with your life is pretty bloody powerful.

Let's teach boys at school the personally and economically valuable skills of self-expression and emotional intelligence, of mediation and problem-solving.

You can't write a thing that is hermetically sealed; there has to be a way for the audience to get in and participate. I think that's a massively valuable discipline for any artist.

The arts are valuable because they increase our sense of what it means to be human, not because of any specific skill or ability they confer.

People who were always hardbodies love that competitive style of team-sports activity: they come up with timers and fitness contests and personal bests. But for the vast majority of people, competition in exercise is not fun. It's no fun to compete if you know you can never win.

If I'm working every day, it's like pumping a pump. When you start, rusty water comes out, and then it runs clear. I do it even if I get completely stuck.

I suppose the idea about all Orthodox religion is that it's a kind of submission, obedience.

If something is a problem, it's all right to admit it.

I love books. I want to read them, and I want to own them so they're always available to be reread.

The gaming world isn't filled only with violence and depravity. In fact, it's mostly enchanting.

What is freedom, in the end, but that no one cares any longer to try to restrain us?

One of them says, 'Why did they do it?' And the other answers, 'Because they could.' That is the only answer there ever is.

The truth has always been a more complex commodity than the market can easily package and sell.