The world is not real for me until it has been pushed through the mesh of language.

He knows that after him everything will continue on much as before, except that there will be a minuscule absence, a barely detective gap in the so-called grand scheme, one unit fewer now. Or not even that, not even an empty space where he once was, for all will rush immediately to fill that vacuum. Pft. Gone. Recollections of him will remain in the minds of others for a while, but presently those others too will die and his few relics with them. And then all will be dark.

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

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

Most crime fiction, no matter how 'hard-boiled' or bloodily forensic, is essentially sentimental, for most crime writers are disappointed romantics.

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

I would be far more critical than any reviewer could be of my own work. So I simply don't read them.