Nutshell

by Ian McEwan

The beginning of conscious life was the end of illusion, the illusion of non-being, and the eruption of the real.

My father comes by the house from time to time and I’m overjoyed. Sometimes he brings her smoothies from his favourite place on Judd Street.

Trudy and John,baby's father are estranged not living tovethber

Its nervous population obese, fearful, tormented by inarticulate anger, contemptuous of governance, murdering sleep with every new handgun.

Referring to the US

Pessimism is too easy, even delicious, the badge and plume of intellectuals everywhere. It absolves the thinking classes of solutions.

We’ll always be troubled by how things are—that’s how it stands with the difficult gift of consciousness.

But here’s life’s most limiting truth—it’s always now, always here, never then and there.

When love dies and a marriage lies in ruins, the first casualty is honest memory, decent, impartial recall of the past.

“He’s a poet. He never locks the car. When I give you the sign, go out there with the stuff.”

Lol because the husband is a poet he has to be careless?

Speaking’s just a form of thinking and he must be as stupid as he appears.

Fetus opinion of Claude

Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves, Confucius said.

Claude doesn’t know he’s stupid. If you’re stupid, how can you tell?