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" Jonathan Lethem's 10th novel, 'The Blot,' is engaging, entertaining, and sharp for its first two-thirds. Then it goes to hell. "
Lionel Shriver
Engaging
First
Goes
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" Most books are three-thirds rubbish. "
Lionel Shriver
Books
Rubbish
Most
" I guess I understand a public intellectual to be somebody who moves public discourse forward: someone who either says something new or says something that everybody knows to be true but is afraid to express. "
Lionel Shriver
True
Intellectual
Forward
" The sign that I don't like the book I'm reading is finding myself watching reruns of 'Come Dine With Me.' "
Lionel Shriver
Like
Book
Myself
" As a woman, I'd be uneasy about being given the power to determine what is insulting to women in general. "
Lionel Shriver
Woman
Women
General
" As a teenager, I ached to grow up even more than I dreaded to. I craved escape from my parents' impositions on what I believed. "
Lionel Shriver
More
Grow Up
Parents
" 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. "
Lionel Shriver
Reform
Off
May
" A smaller waist is not the solution to all your problems. "
Lionel Shriver
Your
Problems
Smaller
" Publishers like their authors to take advantage of publicity opportunities. "
Lionel Shriver
Opportunities
Like
Take Advantage
" Conservative supporters might either have the courage of their convictions or, if truly ashamed, revise them, but they should at least refute the proposition that defending your own interests is only acceptable if you're broke. "
Lionel Shriver
Courage
Own
You
" What a good novelist does with a throwaway that serves no fictional purpose is throw it away. "
Lionel Shriver
Purpose
Good
Does
" 'The Feminine Mystique' goads me to gratitude that, thanks to forerunners like Betty Friedan, I've had the opportunity to pursue a career. "
Lionel Shriver
Like
Career
Opportunity
" During the protracted tooth-and-nail tussle between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Democratic primaries, I was one of those fierce partisans desperate for the first black candidate with a serious shot at the White House to win the nomination. "
Lionel Shriver
Shot
Black
Fierce
" 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? "
Lionel Shriver
Happiness
Independence
Right
" I am hopeful that the concept of 'cultural appropriation' is a passing fad: people with different backgrounds rubbing up against each other and exchanging ideas and practices is self-evidently one of the most productive, fascinating aspects of modern urban life. "
Lionel Shriver
I Am
Different
Up
" Hungry for both fantasy and inspiration, readers crave protagonists who, after overcoming seemingly insurmountable obstacles, triumph at the end of the day. "
Lionel Shriver
Day
Triumph
End
" Donald Trump wouldn't work on paper. Obnoxious, crass, boastful, and vulgar, with garish tastes and a Stepford wife - as a fictional character, he'd seem too crudely drawn. Even in a trashy airport thriller, readers wouldn't buy such a boor as president. "
Lionel Shriver
Character
Wife
Airport
" 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. "
Lionel Shriver
World
Value
People
" Ultimately, Hillary and Obama are on the same side. "
Lionel Shriver
Same
Ultimately
Side
" 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
Go
I Believe
Believe
" Letting ourselves down in some fashion is such an integral part of daily life that the paucity of literature on the subject is baffling. "
Lionel Shriver
Life
Fashion
Down
" Some of the best scenes in drama take almost no time - helping to illustrate that life-changing events in real life often occur in a split second, after which nothing is ever the same. "
Lionel Shriver
Best
Drama
Time
" I can't be alone among fiction writers in regarding the world, so much weirder than anything we could make up, as beating us at our own game or in racking my brains over what could possibly constitute a contribution when novels pale before the newspaper. "
Lionel Shriver
Game
Own
World
" 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. "
Lionel Shriver
You
Great
Nothing
" 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. "
Lionel Shriver
You
Life
Time
" 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. "
Lionel Shriver
Short
New
Long
" We speak often of 'destroying the planet' when what we mean is destroying its habitability for humans. "
Lionel Shriver
Speak
Planet
Mean
" Clearly, freedom does not extend to the right to harm other people. "
Lionel Shriver
Freedom
People
Harm
" 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!' "
Lionel Shriver
Success
Look
Good
" Set a good example as parents, since the most convincing argument that a girl can become a computer coder is that her mother is one. "
Lionel Shriver
Argument
Parents
Mother
" The absence of doll babies in my toy chest didn't seriously influence my later decision not to become a mother; rather, I disdained Hasbro's Baby Alive wetting doll because I was already the kind of girl who would grow up to be childless by choice. "
Lionel Shriver
Girl
Mother
Decision