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" I didn't want it to be a book that made pronouncements. "

Penelope Lively

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" I'm not an historian and I'm not wanting to write about how I perceive the social change over the century as a historian, but as somebody who's walked through it and whose life has been dictated by it too, as all our lives are. "

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" The consideration of change over the century is about loss, though I think that social change is gain rather than loss. "

Penelope Lively