I'm A Hopeless 19th-century Romantic.

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

I Live In Dublin, God Knows Why. There Are Greatly More Congenial Places I Could Have Settled In - Italy, France, Manhattan - But I Like The Climate Here, And Irish Light Seems To Be Essential For Me And For My Writing.

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.

In Order Really To Write One Has To Sink Deep Into The Self And Become Lost There.

There Are Times, They Occur With Increasing Frequency Nowadays, When I Seem To Know Nothing, When Everything I Know Seems To Have Fallen Out Of My Mind Like A Shower Of Rain, And I Am Gripped For A Moment In Paralysed Dismay, Waiting For It All To Come Back But With No Certainty That It Will.