Briony began to understand the chasm that lay between an idea and its execution.

I think the novel, its business is the investigation of human nature.

The cost of oblivius daydreaming was always this moment of return, the realigment with what had been before and now seemed a little worse. Her reverie, once rich in plausible details, had become a passing silliness before the hard mass of the actual. It was difficult to come back.

I couldn't think about novels at all. It seemed the only writing that was appropriate to that horrendous event was journalism, reportage. And, in fact, I think the profession rose quite honorably to the task. Novelists require a slower turnover, I mean, in time.

I've always thought cruelty is a failure of imagination.

...beauty, she had discovered occupied a narrow band. Ugliness, on the hand, had infinite variation.

Screenwriting is an opportunity to fly first class, be treated like a celebrity, sit around the pool and be betrayed.