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.

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

I am the worst judge of my books.

Poetry is that magic which consists in awakening sensations with the help of a combination of sounds ... that sorcery by which ideas are necessarily communicated to us, in a definite way, by words which nevertheless do not express them.

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

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.

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