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

"But the static in your mind leaves you hollow and unkind / With a shock electric wave turns you on."

— Hansen, Beck [Beck] (b. July 8, 1970)

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: 1999

"The insomniac's brain is a choo-choo train."

— Simic, Charles (b. 1938)

Date: 1999

"Thus, in psychology, the computer serves as a model of the mind as conceived by empiricists such as Hume (with the bits as atomic impressions) and idealists such as Kant (with the program providing the rules)."

— Dreyfus, Hubert L. (b. 1929)

Date: June 27, 2025

"Quite often the thing that people respond to in my books is the train – the train wreck – of thought."

— Dyer, Geoff (b. 1958)