Ian McEwan

"The cost of oblivious daydreaming was always this moment of return, the realignment with what had been before and now seemed a little worse."

"This is how the entire course of a life can be changed: by doing nothing."

"And though you think the world is at your feet, it can rise up and tread on you."

"I did not kill my father, but I sometimes felt I had helped him on his way."

"On the 9/11 hijackers: "Now, I'm an atheist. I really don't believe for a moment that our moral sense comes from a God. … It's human, universal, being able to think our way into the minds of others. A…"

"He had once felt light on the ground. He used to think his life was an open-ended adventure, he used to give things away, it amused him when the unexpected happened, benevolent coincidences used to be…"

"Nations are never virtuous, though they might sometimes think they are."

"This is how the entire course of a life can be changed - by doing nothing."