The effect of prizes on one's career - if that is what to call it - is considerable, since they give one more clout with publishers and more notoriety among journalists. The effect on one's writing, however, is nil - otherwise, one would be in deep trouble.

If I was asked to say what was the greatest invention of human beings, I would say the sentence.

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

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

It's great people still care about books, and it's great you can still fashion a life from literature.

I think I'm less the writer than I'm the written.

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.