Penelope Lively

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

"We all act as hinges-fortuitous links between other people."

"Unless I am a part of everything I am nothing."

"But however minimal, however threadbare, it (collective memory) is ballast of a kind. We all need that seven-eighths of the iceberg, the ballast of the past, a general past, the place from which we came. That is why history should be taught in school. to all children, as much of it as possible. If you have no sense of the past, no access to historical narrative, you are afloat, untethered; you cannot see yourself as a part of the narrative, you cannot place yourself within a context. You will not have an understanding of time, and a respect for memory and its subtle victory over the remorselessness of time."

"It seems to me that anyone whose library consists of a Kindle lying on a table is some sort of bloodless nerd."