By measuring individual human worth, the novelist reveals the full enormity of the State

You can tell a lot from a person's nails. When a life starts to unravel, they're among the first to go.

Self-consciousness is the destroyer of erotic joy.

The evasions of her little novel were exactly those of her life. Everything she did not wish to confront was also missing from her novella--and was necessary to it.

It was always the view of my parents...that hot weather encouraged loose morals among young people.

It was common enough, to see so much death and want a child. Common, therefore human, and he wanted it all the more. When the wounded were screaming, you dreamed of sharing a little house somewhere, of an ordinary life, a family line, connection.

It's good to get your hands dirty a bit and to test how you see things at a given point. And it's very pleasing after writing something like 'Atonement' or 'On Chesil Beach,' which are historical, to get involved in some plausible re-enactment of the here and now.