Good writing is always new.

— A.S. Byatt

He had been violently confused by her real presence in the opposite inaccessible corner. For months, he had been possessed by the imagination of her. She had been distant and closed away, a princess in a tower, and his imagination’s work had been all to make her present, all of her, to his mind and senses, the quickness of her and the mystery, the whiteness of her, which was part of her extreme magnetism, and the green look of those piercing or occluded eyes. Her presence had been unimaginable, or more strictly, only to be imagined. Yet here she was, and he was engaged in observing the ways in which she resembled, or differed from, the woman he dreamed, or reached for in sleep, or would fight for.

— A.S. Byatt

He was a compact, clear-cut man, with precise features, a lot of very soft black hair, and thoughtful dark brown eyes. He had a look of wariness, which could change when he felt relaxed or happy, which was not often in these difficult days, into a smile of amused friendliness and pleasure which aroused feelings of warmth, and something more, in many women.

— A.S. Byatt

[H]is mouth pursed, but pursed in American, more generous than English pursing, ready for broader vowels and less mincing sounds. His body was long and lean and trim; he had American hips, ready for a neat belt and the faraway ghost of a Sunbelt.

— A.S. Byatt

History, writing, infect after a time a man's sense of himself...

— A.S. Byatt

I do not want to be a relative and passive being, anywhere. I want to live and love and write.

— A.S. Byatt

In the end it wins a king's daughter, who is expected to burn its hedgehog-skin at night, and does so, and finds herself clasping a beautiful prince, all singed and soot-black. Charitable says, 'And if he regretted his armory of spines and his quick wild wits, history does not relate, for we must go no further, having reached the happy end.

— A.S. Byatt

I think, yes, a man and a woman can be good friends, but it isn't easy for them being as no one else will suppose that that is what they are. And then there's the problem of being different sexes. I think if they are good friends, then whatever else they are - or are not - is better.

— A.S. Byatt

It [In Memoriam] expressed exactly the nature of her own shock and sorrow, the very structure and slow process of pain, and the transformations and transmutations of grief, like rot in the earthbound, like roots and other blind things moving in the grave.

— A.S. Byatt

It is good for a man to invite his ghosts into his warm interior, out of the wild night, into the firelight, out of the howling dark.

— A.S. Byatt