Date: 1998

"hese days he seemed to lack the dedication and clarity or emptiness of mind, and the action itself seemed quaintly outmoded and improbable, like lighting a fire by rubbing two sticks."

— McEwan, Ian (b. 1948)

Date: 1998

"The thought scrolled round and round in his mind--it went well, it went well."

— McEwan, Ian (b. 1948)

Date: 1998

"Though he sounded it guiltily on his inner ear, he would not let the word reach his lips."

— McEwan, Ian (b. 1948)

Date: 1998

"But belligerence was a poor aid to concentration, as were the three gins and a bottle of wine, and three hours later he was still staring a the score on the piano, in a hunched attitude of work, with a pencil in his hand and a frown, but hearing and seeing only the bright hurdy-gurdy carousel of...

— McEwan, Ian (b. 1948)

Date: 1998

"Vernon slumped with his tea while his mental odometer tallied the insults and humiliations."

— McEwan, Ian (b. 1948)

Date: 1998

"His nakedness against the sheet, the wanton tangle of bedclothes by his ankle, and the sight of his own genitalia, at his age not yet fully obscured by the swell and spread of his gut, sent vague sexual thoughts floating across his mind like remote summer clouds."

— McEwan, Ian (b. 1948)

Date: 2000

"Looking at the leaves turn red in the valley simplifies my mind, a javelin flying past those tightly packed tubes of paint in which so many subtle frequencies of light have been trapped, and landing where there is only blood and fire."

— Edward St. Aubyn (b. 1960)

Date: 2000

"This is after all the heart of the matter, the place where everything -- not without difficulty, not without civil war, not without nailing down my tongue and drawing over it the serrated knife of one thing after another, not without learning to thank my torturers because it's been such a growth...

— Edward St. Aubyn (b. 1960)

Date: 2000

"It's the medium-sized thoughts that jump ship in an emergency."

— Edward St. Aubyn (b. 1960)

Date: 2000

"The feeling raged through him, like a burning rope he couldn't hold on to, although someone he loved was falling at the other end of it; it ripped the skin from his hands."

— Edward St. Aubyn (b. 1960)