It troubles him to consider the powerful currents and fine-tuning that alter fate, the close and distant influences, the accidents of character and circumstance.

No one knew about the squirrel’s skull beneath Briony bed, but no one wanted to know.

Observing human variety can give pleasure, but so too can human sameness.

How can a novelist achieve atonement when, with her absolute power of deciding outcomes, she is also God?

When anything can happen, everything matters.

I find it very difficult to talk about unwritten works. It's never useful to start putting words casually around the flimsiest of notions. I finished Saturday only in late November and I'm now in the rather pleasant stage of traveling, reading and waiting.

Not everything people did could be in a correct, logical order, especially when they were alone.