Quotes from Scarlett Thomas

Sometimes I like to think I live with ghosts. Not from my past, but wispy bits of ideas and books that hang in the air like silk puppets. Sometimes I think I see my own ideas, floating around too, but they usually don't last that long. They're more like mayflies; they're born, big and gleaming, and then they fly around, buzzing like crazy before they fall to the floor, dead, about twenty four hours later.

I always got a bit pissed off with those broadsheet sceptics who make their living being passionately angry about homeopathy, God, synchronicity or whatever, because it's as if they can't get past their emotions, and in their rage they become as faith-driven as the beliefs they criticise. I always said they give scientists a bad name. After all, science has to be about asking unthinkable questions, not closing down debate.

I don't have bionic arms, and I have absolutely no stamina. Once I rubbed out the penciled-in marginalia of a hundred pages of a book that I wanted to photocopy (long story) and afterwards it felt like I'd been wanking off a giant for a hundred years.

I wonder at what point my life swerved to avoid that, and if that life would have been nicer than the one I've got.

My novels are high concept. I guess big ideas interest me more than, say, the minutiae of domestic life.

being published' is not the same as being a real writer.

I realised that when someone plays hard to get, they are making themselves into a character in a story, and they choose the story that leads to the outcome they want.

I'd been pleased to find there was an alternative to the other stuff, which all reminded me of advertisements containing people with perfect teeth, heroic expressions and offspring that looked like they were on their way to Hitler youth rallies.

The storyless story is a vagina with teeth.

One minute I was playing chess and doing maths all the time, the next I had been rerouted into more 'normal' girls' activities: reading, writing stories and worrying about my clothes.

If someone who had given up his whole life to thinking about goodness and rightness and truth and still expected nuns to cook him his fish fingers (because after all, nuns haven't got anything else better to do, and none of them are ever going to be priests or become the Pope, because women aren't good enough for that), then something was very wrong. How could he have missed the bit about everyone being equal in the eyes of God?

I can't fuck up his whole life and take away everything that means something to him just because I think I've found my soul mate.' 'Yeah, but...' 'Yeah, but. I know. Having found my soul mate, how cruel is it for me to stay with Bob, pretending I feel more for him than I do and preventing him from going out and finding someone who loves him the way I love Mark?' 'You can't be responsible for other people's feelings

Libby stood at the bar like something that had been hastily added at the end of a painting that hasn't quite dried yet.

Is there anything more embarrassing than being caught imitating someone you really admire, by someone who knows you really well? Apart from being caught taking a shit in public, maybe not.

Aquinas wondered what would happen if God wanted to achieve universal resurrection. In other words, bringing everybody who had ever lived back to life at the same time. What would happen to cannibals, and the people they ate? You couldn't bring them all back at the same time, because the cannibals are made of the people they have eaten. You could have one but not the other. Ha.' I looked at Rowan. 'That's a good example of a paradox.

Somewhere in the world there is a magical book. What does this book do? It simply changes itself to become the book you most need at this point in your life.

I hate the honesty of the moring; the time before your consiousness switches on the light and gets rid of all the nasty shadows.

Child, all books are magic. Just think,' he said, 'about what books make people do. People go to war on the basis of what they read in books. They believe in "facts" just because they are written down. They decide to adopt political systems, to travel to one place rather than another, to give up their job and go on a great adventure, to love or to hate. All books have tremendous power. And power is magic.' 'But are these books really magic...?

I promised your father I wouldn't teach you any magic. Particularly after what happened with your mother. And I also promised some other people that I would not do any magic for five years... and indeed I have not done any magic for five years. Although...' He looked at his watch. 'The five years is due to run out next Tuesday. Things should get more interesting then.

Christopher, like most people, didn't like his universe being unfathomable, so I doubted that a Zen koan would help him.

Nothing means anything but you still have to follow the rules.

What folly takes light through ether to each eye from every horizon.

NÄ›kdy si ráda pÃ…â"¢edstavuju, že bydlím s pÃ…â"¢ízraky. Ne s tÄ›mi ze své minulosti - v takové nev??ím -, ale s pr?hlednými kusy myÅ¡lenek a knih visícími ve vzduchu jako hedvábné loutky.

Patrick opens his arms about three feet wide and, with one finger pointing up on each hand, tries to show the scope of this thing. I notice that he doesn't look at his hands as he does this, but at the wall behind me. It suddenly occurs to me that when people describe size this way, they're relying on perspective to help them. He's not saying 'It's this big.' He's saying 'It would look this big from here if it was over there.