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" As individuals are best off believing they control their behaviour, the judiciary is best off imputing that control - barring powerful extenuating factors such as mental illness. "

Lionel Shriver

Powerful

Control

Best

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

" 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. "

" I have buckets of sympathy for the obese, often subject to cruelty, ridicule, denunciation, and contempt. "

" I was terrified of growing up to become the anti-me, maturing into a woman whom I would not recognise and who wouldn't recognise her younger self. "

" When we conceive of happiness as a static state, effectively a place toward which we are aimed but at which most of us will never feel we've quite arrived, then the vision becomes exclusionary. "

" I might defend the reviewing trade, but a handful of haughty hired hands no longer having the last word on books is not a bad thing. "

" There was a point in the latter 1990s at which, suddenly, every sitcom and drama in sight had to have a gay or lesbian character or couple. That was good news as a voucher of the success of the gay rights movement, but it still grew a bit tiresome: 'Look at us! Our show is so hip, one of the characters is homosexual!' "

" 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. "

" Criminality being partially preordained may seem to let culprits off the hook. Yet it also makes the proclivity seem ineradicable and suggests that reform is unlikely: once a baddie, always a baddie. "

" For pity's sake, if you don't take a shine to a novel, there are loads more in the world; read something else. Continue suffering, and it's not the author's fault. It's yours. "

" I was born after the heavy spade work of female emancipation was done. "

" Awful film adaptations follow novelists for the rest of their lives. An atrocious movie of 'We Need to Talk About Kevin' could have stigmatised the book, aggrieved the novel's fans, and blighted my reputation forever. "

" In my country, we're sufficiently consumed by the concept of happiness that the right to its pursuit is enshrined in the Declaration of Independence. But what is happiness? "

" While one can't always begrudge the wealth of people who have at least produced something of value, the rich of the financial world don't make anything but more money. They're not creative, aside from, perhaps, in accounting. "

" Reading time is precious. Don't waste it. Reading bad books, or books that are wrong for a certain time in your life, can dangerously turn you off the activity altogether. "

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" In Shaker Heights, Ohio, one of America's first planned communities, order and harmony are prized. "

" For storytellers, financiers make ideal rogues. The easiest way to make characters unappealing is to make them rich - shorthand for spoiled, picky, superior, and cold-hearted. "

" The premiere of Lynne Ramsay's film of 'We Need To Talk About Kevin' at the Cannes film festival provides an apt juncture at which to celebrate the miraculous power - not of film but of fiction. Lo, I have created a monster. "

" The daughter of an ordained minister, I had been forced to go to church since I was a toddler. I hated church and resented being forced to recite the Apostle's Creed, mumbling, 'I believe... ' when I didn't. "

Lionel Shriver

I Believe

Believe

" Hypersensitivity has become a weapon. "

Lionel Shriver

Become

Weapon

" Weight having become politicised, anyone with a profile in the media who either subscribes to or departs from the template of tininess implicitly represents a constituency, whether they want to or not. "

" I am bowled over by the massive number of remarkable people who face down the fact that no, they are not going to be film directors, famous artists, or billionaire entrepreneurs and still come out the other side as cheerful, decent, gracious human beings. "

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" I'm sometimes asked if I get bored with talking about 'Kevin,' and of course, the short answer is yes. Nevertheless, after a long slog in the literary trenches, I never take a single reader for granted and always remind myself that for new readers the unfolding story is fresh. "

" In the public mind, an investment banker is no longer conservative; he's a risk taker, a gambler in high stakes, not to mention a thief. These people are dangerous - deliciously so. "

" As any traveller knows, heading elsewhere is one thing, getting back quite another. "

" February is for curmudgeons, whinge-bags, and misanthropes. You can't begrudge us one month of the year or blame us for being even crabbier, it's so short. There is nothing good about it, which is why it's so great. "