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The Virgin in the Garden (The Frederica Quartet, #1) QUOTES

The Virgin in the Garden (The Frederica Quartet, #1) QUOTES

1 " Contemporary' was in those days [1953] synonymous with 'modern' as it had not been before and is not now [1977]. "

― A.S. Byatt , The Virgin in the Garden (The Frederica Quartet, #1)

2 " A metamorphosis... The shining butterfly of the soul from the pupa of the body. Larva, pupa, imago. An image of art. "

― A.S. Byatt , The Virgin in the Garden (The Frederica Quartet, #1)

3 " Those words . . . national and portrait. They were both to do with identity: the identity of a culture (place, language and history), the identity of an individual human being as an object for mimetic representation. "

― A.S. Byatt , The Virgin in the Garden (The Frederica Quartet, #1)

4 " There was a moment during this time, when his face was on hers, cheek on cheek, brow on brow, heavy skull on skull, through soft skin and softer flesh. He thought: skulls separate people. In this one sense, I could say, they would say, I lose myself in her. But in that bone box, she thinks and thinks, as I think in mine, things the other won't hear, can't hear, though we go on like this for sixty years. What does she think I am? He had no idea. He had no idea what she was. "

― A.S. Byatt , The Virgin in the Garden (The Frederica Quartet, #1)

5 " Lists are a form of power. "

― A.S. Byatt , The Virgin in the Garden (The Frederica Quartet, #1)

6 " ...it is not possible to create the opposite of what one has always known, simply because the opposite is believed to be desired. Human beings need what they already know, even horrors. "

― A.S. Byatt , The Virgin in the Garden (The Frederica Quartet, #1)