I dont know if there is a personal identity. We all imagine that we are absolute individuals. But when we begin to look for where this individuality resides, its very difficult to find.

If they give me the bloody prize, why can't they say nice things about me?

We carry the dead with us only until we die too, and then it is we who are borne along for a little while, and then our bearers in their turn drop, and so on into the unimaginable generations.

Ian McEwan is a very good writer; the first half of Atonement alone would ensure him a lasting place in English letters.

That's one of the many things I hate about life, that it's a hideously cliched business.

I'm full of self-doubt. I doubt everything I do. Everything I do is a failure.

I have this fantasy. I'm walking past a bookshop and I click my fingers and all my books go blank. So I can start again and get it right.