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" 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

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" Ultimately, Hillary and Obama are on the same side. "

" 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. "

" I do occasionally encounter a British business that delivers what and when, and for exactly the price, they promised. But commercial paragons in the U.K. are rare. "

" 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. "

" Novelists are too often assumed to write veiled autobiography. "

" Perhaps scientists will eventually discover that we are all clockwork bunnies, and our experience of volition is an electro-chemical illusion. "

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

" 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? "

" I owe thanks to a thoughtful, sophisticated readership hungry for challenging subject matter, for honest portrayals of parenthood, and for fiction whose meaning is neither obvious nor morally pat. "

" A smaller waist is not the solution to all your problems. "

" Writers who take on polarising issues are apt to step on a few toes. "

" We speak often of 'destroying the planet' when what we mean is destroying its habitability for humans. "

" Hungry for both fantasy and inspiration, readers crave protagonists who, after overcoming seemingly insurmountable obstacles, triumph at the end of the day. "

" 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. "

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

" 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

Grow Up

Parents

" Ironically, heavier comedians, actors, and the characters they play are actually more sympathetic, and easier for audiences to identify with, than the svelte. "

Lionel Shriver

Play

Easier

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

" Formal declarations of mistrust, pre-nups are emotionally unfortunate. They overtly plan for failure, and thus involve a jarring cognitive dissonance. "

" Life's most underrated emotion is self-pity. "

" I'm not a religious person. Chances are that the universe neither treasures nor regrets us. "

Lionel Shriver

Chances

Universe

" Certainly, critics are not all created equal. "

" 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. "

" We vainly fancy ourselves above the ugly informing and paranoia of the right-wing McCarthy era, but in the 21st century, the Left has fashioned a mirror image. "

" 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. "

" I read 'The Bell Jar' as an adolescent and, like most teenagers, had no problem identifying with a young woman who had everything going for her - looks, talent, opportunity, with her 'whole life ahead of her,' yadda, yadda, yadda - yet was spiraling into misery. "

" 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. "

" 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

" In grad school, I took a workshop with Scott Spencer, whose excellent novel 'Endless Love' had just been turned into a film. We students were in awe of his prestige. Yet Scott himself was chagrined; for good reason, he hated the movie. "

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