All A Work Of Art Can Do

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.

Writing Keeps Me At My Desk, Constantly Trying To Write A Perfect Sentence. It Is A Great Privilege To Make One's Living From Writing Sentences. The Sentence Is The Greatest Invention Of Civilization. To Sit All Day Long Assembling These Extraordinary Strings Of Words Is A Marvelous Thing. I Couldn't Ask For Anything Better. It's As Near To Godliness As I Can Get.

I Read Nietzsche When I Was A Teenager And Then I Went Back To Reading Him When I Was In My Thirties, And His Voice Spoke Directly To Me. Nietzsche Is Such A Superb Literary Artist.

I Have Never Really Got Used To Being On This Earth. Sometimes I Think Our Presence Here Is Due To A Cosmic Blunder, That We Were Meant For Another Planet Altogether, With Other Arrangements, And Other Laws, And Other, Grimmer Skies. I Try To Imagine It, Our True Place, Off On The Far Side Of The Galaxy, Whirling And Whirling. And The Ones Who Were Meant For Here, Are They Out There, Baffled And Homesick, Like Us? No, They Would Have Become Extinct Long Ago. How Could They Survive, These Gentle Earthlings, In A World That Was Made To Contain Us.

Ian Mcewan Is A Very Good Writer; The First Half Of Atonement Alone Would Ensure Him A Lasting Place In English Letters.