Author: A.S. Byatt

Cites

• Robert Browning (1)
  • IN: Possession (1990) Fiction, British
    EPIGRAPH: And if at whiles the bubble, blown too thin, Seem nigh on bursting,—if you nearly see The real world through the false,—what do you see? Is the old so ruined? You find you ’re in a flock O’ the youthful, earnest, passionate—genius, beauty, Rank and wealth also, if you care for these: And all depose their natural rights, hail you, (That ’s me, sir) as their mate and yoke-fellow, Participate in Sludgehood -- nay, grow mine, I veritably possess them--... // And all this might be, may be, and with good help Of a little lying shall be: so Sludge lies! Why, he's at worst your poet who sings how Greeks That never were, in Troy which never was, Did this or the other impossible great thing!... But why do I mount to poets? Take plain prose— Dealers in common sense, set these at work, What can they do without their helpful lies? Each states the law and fact and face o’ the thing Just as he’d have them, finds what he thinks fit, Is blind to what missuits him, just records What makes his case out, quite ignores the rest. It ’s a History of the World, the Lizard Age, The Early Indians, the Old Country War, Jerome Napoleon, whatsoever you please, All as the author wants it. Such a scribe You pay and praise for putting life in stones, Fire into fog, making the past your world. There’s plenty of “How did you contrive to grasp “The thread which led you through this labyrinth? “How build such solid fabric out of air? “How on so slight foundation found this tale? “Biography, narrative?” or, in other words, “How many lies did it require to make “The portly truth you here present us with?”
    FROM: "Mr Sludge", "The Medium", (1864), Poem, UK
• Alice Carroll (1)
  • IN: A Whistling Woman (1993) Fiction, British
    EPIGRAPH: `And just as I'd taken the highest tree in the wood,' continued the Pigeon, raising its voice to a shriek, `and just as I was thinking I should be free of them at last, they must needs come wriggling down from the sky! Ugh, Serpent!' `But I'm not a serpent, I tell you!' said Alice. `I'm a--I'm a--' `Well! what are you?' said the Pigeon. `I can see you're trying to invent something!' `I--I'm a little girl,' said Alice, rather doubtfully, as she remembered the number of changes she had gone through that day. `A likely story indeed!' said the Pigeon in a tone of the deepest contempt. `I've seen a good many little girls in my time, but never one with such a neck as that! No, no! You're a serpent; and there's no use denying it.
    FROM: Alice in the Wonderland, (1865), Saying, UK
• Andrew Marvell (1)
  • IN: A Whistling Woman (1993) Fiction, British
    EPIGRAPH: Here at the Fountain's sliding foot, Or at some Fruit-tree's mossy root, Casting the Bodies vest aside, My soul into the boughs does glide: There like a Bird it sits and sings, Then whets, and combs its silver Wings; And, till prepared for longer flight, Waves in its plumes the various Light.
    FROM: The Garden, (1681), Poem, UK
• Madame de Sade (1)
  • IN: Babel Tower (None) Fiction, British
    EPIGRAPH: La Natyre n'a qu'une voix, dites-vous, qui parle a tous les hommes. Pourquoi done que ces hommes pensent differemment? Tout, d'apres cela, devalt etre unanime et d'accord, et cet, accord ne sera jamais pour ;'anthropophagie.
    FROM: Addressed to her husband, (None), Letter, France
• Friedrich Nietzsche (1)
  • IN: Babel Tower (None) Fiction, British
    EPIGRAPH: I fear we are not getting rid of God because we still believe in grammar.
    FROM: Twilight of the Idols: or How to Philosophize with a Hammer, (1889), Book, Germany
• W. H. Auden (1)
  • IN: Babel Tower (None) Fiction, British
    EPIGRAPH: Her Telepathic-Station transmits thought-waves the second-rate, the bored, the disappointed, and any of us when tired or uneasy, are tuned to receive. So, though unlisted in atlas or phone-book, Her garden is easy to find. In no time one reaches the gate over which is written large: MAKE LOVE NOT WAR. * She does not brutalise Her victims(beasts could bite or bolt), She simplifies them to flowers, sessile fatalists who don't mind and only can talk to themselves. All but a privileged Few, the elite She guides to Her secret Citadel, the Tower where a laught is forbidden and DO HARM AS THOU WILT is the Law. Dear little not-so-innocents, beware of Old Grandmother Spider; rump her endearments. She's not quite as nice as She looks, nor you quite as tough as you think.
    FROM: Circe, (1969), ***Poem, England/US