A plot begins when somebody has something to hide.

To take possession of a city of which you are not a native you must first fall in love there.

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

I shall strip away layer after layer of grime -- the toffee-colored varnish and caked soot left by a lifetime of dissembling -- until I come to the very thing itself and know it for what it is. My soul. My self.

I live in Dublin, God knows why. There are greatly more congenial places I could have settled in - Italy, France, Manhattan - but I like the climate here, and Irish light seems to be essential for me and for my writing.

Dostoevsky is such a bad writer it is hard to take him seriously as a novelist, though he is a wonderful philosopher.

All art at a certain level is entertainment. We go to a tragedy by Sophocles to be entertained.