Life is tragic but it's equally comic.

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.

Doing what you do well is death. Your duty is to keep trying to do things that you don't do well, in the hope of learning.

With the crime novels, its delightful to have protagonists I can revisit in book after book. Its like having a fictitious family.

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

The sentence is the greatest human invention of civilization.

Where I went, no one could follow. Yet someone managed to hold my hand.