One has to have the courage of one's pessimism.

Politics is the enemy of the imagination.

By concentrating on what is good in people, by appealing to their idealism and their sense of justice, and by asking them to put their faith in the future, socialists put themselves at a severe disadvantage.

One has to have the courage of one's pessimism.

It is not the first duty of the novelist to provide blueprints for insurrection, or uplifting tales of successful resistance for the benefit of the opposition. The naming of what is there is what is important.

You enter a state of controlled passivity, you relax your grip and accept that even if your declared intention is to justify the ways of God to man, you might end up interesting your readers rather more in Satan.

A twenty-one-year-old writer is likely to be inhibited by a lack of usable experience. Childhood and adolescence were something I knew.

Atheists have as much conscience, possibly more, than people with deep religious conviction, and they still have the same problem of how they reconcile themselves to a bad deed in the past. It's a little easier if you've got a god to forgive you.

I always used to deny this, but I guess what I'm really saying is that I was writing to shock... And I dug deep and dredged up all kinds of vile things which fascinated me at the time.

I don't believe there's any inherent darkness at the center of religion at all. I think religion actually is a morally neutral force.

I don't hold grudges.

I think of novels in architectural terms. You have to enter at the gate, and this gate must be constructed in such a way that the reader has immediate confidence in the strength of the building.

I was an intimate sort of child who never spoke up in groups. I preferred close friends.

I wouldn't mind being the lead guitarist in an incredibly successful rock band. However, I don't play the guitar.

In my experience an appreciative letter from a fellow writer means a lot.

It should simply be an empirical matter whether the climate is changing or not and whether we're responsible. But the various sides of the debate have now become so tribal that it's no longer a matter of changing our views as more information comes in.

It's good to get your hands dirty a bit and to test how you see things at a given point. And it's very pleasing after writing something like 'Atonement' or 'On Chesil Beach,' which are historical, to get involved in some plausible re-enactment of the here and now.

My father's drinking was sometimes a problem. And a great deal went unspoken. He was not particularly acute or articulate about the emotions. But he was very affectionate towards me.

Not being boring is quite a challenge.

Now, I'm an atheist. I really don't believe for a moment that our moral sense comes from a god.

One important theme is the extent to which one can ever correct an error, especially outside any frame of religious forgiveness. All of us have done something we regret - how we manage to remove that from our conscience, or whether that's even possible, interested me.

Perhaps the greatest reading pleasure has an element of self-annihilation. To be so engrossed that you barely know you exist.

Reading reviews makes you thin-skinned. It's like waves washing layers off your skin.

The end of secrecy would be the end of the novel - especially the English novel. The English novel requires social secrecy, personal secrecy.

True intelligence requires fabulous imagination.

What I've discovered and really confirmed to myself is that opera really likes loud colours, and you need something bold, something savage, unpredictable, passionate. You can't really run a two-hour opera round some muted murmuring.

What is it precisely, that feeling of 'returning' from a poem? Something is lighter, softer, larger - then it fades, but never completely.

What reader wants to be told what attitude to strike?

You can spin stories out of the ways people understand and misunderstand each other.

A team is where a boy can prove his courage on his own. A gang is where a coward goes to hide.

Courage enlarges, cowardice diminishes resources. In desperate straits the fears of the timid aggravate the dangers that imperil the brave.

I know that if I'd had to go and take an exam for acting, I wouldn't have got anywhere. You don't take exams for acting, you take your courage.

Necessity does the work of courage.

Courage is not the absence of despair; it is, rather, the capacity to move ahead in spite of despair.

More firm and sure the hand of courage strikes, when it obeys the watchful eye of caution.

The last thing a woman will consent to discover in a man whom she loves, or on whom she simply depends, is want of courage.

There has to be this pioneer, the individual who has the courage, the ambition to overcome the obstacles that always develop when one tries to do something worthwhile, especially when it is new and different.

The kind of beauty I want most is the hard-to-get kind that comes from within - strength, courage, dignity.

Ronald Reagan's well documented final battles with Alzheimer's disease were fought with the same conviction and courage that his many public battles were fought.

On sensitive issues, talk isn't cheap - it takes real courage to pry open topics nailed shut.

An able, disinterested, public-spirited press, with trained intelligence to know the right and courage to do it, can preserve that public virtue without which popular government is a sham and a mockery.

There is hope in dreams, imagination, and in the courage of those who wish to make those dreams a reality.

It is up to African leaders to show their will and political courage in order to assure that this new pan-African institution becomes an efficient instrument and not a place for endless discussions.

Simulated disorder postulates perfect discipline; simulated fear postulates courage; simulated weakness postulates strength.

It is courage, courage, courage, that raises the blood of life to crimson splendor. Live bravely and present a brave front to adversity.

Courage without conscience is a wild beast.

Is he alone who has courage on his right hand and faith on his left hand?

We need men with moral courage to speak and write their real thoughts, and to stand by their convictions, even to the very death.

True courage is a result of reasoning. A brave mind is always impregnable.