...beauty, she had discovered occupied a narrow band. Ugliness, on the hand, had infinite variation.
Ian McewanAt the back of my mind I had a sense of us sitting about waiting for some terrible event, and then I would remember that it had already happened.
Ian McewanI believe the novella is the perfect form of prose fiction. It is the beautiful daughter of a rambling, bloated ill-shaven giant (but a giant who's a genius on his best days).
Ian McewanYou enter a state of controlled passivity, you relax your grip and accept that even if your declared intention is to justify the ways of God to man, you might end up interesting your readers rather more in Satan.
Ian McewanI think the Americans are dying to leave Iraq. I was against the war but longed for the fall of Saddam; the decision to go to war clearly was taken long before the matter reached the U.N., given its inevitability. I kept my fingers crossed for the emergence of democracy in Iraq even if that would mean victory for a man whose politics I have little sympathy with.
Ian Mcewan