“How, then, does the written word work? What part of a reader absorbs it - or should that be a double question: what part of a reader absorbs what part of a text? I think that underneath, or alongside, a reader's conscious response to a text, whatever is needy in him is taking in whatever the text offers to assuage that need.”
Diana Athill, Somewhere Towards the End“She was an object lesson on the essential luck, whatever hardships may come their way, of those born able to make things.”
Diana Athill, Somewhere Towards the End“Look! Why want anything more marvellous than what is.”
Diana Athill, Alive, Alive Oh!: And Other Things That Matter