Quote by: Penelope Lively

We open our mouths and out flow words whose ancestries we do not even know. We are walking lexicons. In a single sentence of idle chatter we preserve Latin, Anglo-Saxon, Norse; we carry a museum inside our heads, each day we commemorate people of whom we have never heard. More than that, we speak volumes – our language is the language of everything we have read. Shakespeare and the Authorised Version surface in supermarkets, on buses, chatter on radio and television. I find this miraculous. I never cease to wonder at it. That words are more durable than anything, that they blow with the wind, hibernate and reawaken, shelter parasitic on the most unlikely hosts, survive and survive and survive.


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Author Bio


  • NamePenelope Lively
  • DescriptionBritish novelist
  • BornMarch 17, 1933
  • CountryUnited Kingdom
  • ProfessionWriter; Novelist; Radio Host
  • AwardsCarnegie Medal; Dame Commander Of The Order Of The British Empire