How we cite our quotes: (Part.Chapter.Paragraph) or (Part.Paragraph)
Quote #4
Six decades later she would describe how at the age of thirteen she had written her way through a whole history of literature, beginning with stories derived from the European tradition of folktales, through drama with simple moral intent, to arrive at an impartial psychological realism which she had discovered for herself, one special morning during a heat wave in 1935. She would be well aware of the extent of her self-mythologizing, and she gave her account a self-mocking, or mock-heroic tone. (1.3.15)
The one-sentence summary of the history of European literature is nifty. But the real double whammy is that the last sentence summarizes the history a second time. Right? She says European literature goes from magical tales/myths to realism. Then she says that she knows she is self-mythologizing, and then gives her account a "self-mocking" realistic tone. We've mentioned that Mr. McEwan is tricky, right?
Quote #5
Finally he spoke the three simple words that no amount of bad art or bad faith can ever quite cheapen. She repeated them, with exactly the same slight emphasis on the second word, as though she had been the one to say them first. (1.11.67)
The words are… "I love you," of course. And while this quote doesn't seem like it refers directly to writing, it seems significant that it takes place in a library. This is the scene where Cecilia and Robbie have sex among the books—and many of those books are stories in which someone says "I love you" to someone else. But even though all those other books said it, it's still okay for Cecilia and Robbie to say it. Even if Briony (who wrote this scene, remember) is coy about actually writing "I love you" down.
Quote #6
She had dreams in which she ran like this, then tilted forward, spread her arms and, yielding to faith […] left the ground by simply stepping off it [….] She sensed now how this might be achieved, through desire alone; the world she ran through loved her and would give her what she wanted and would let it happen. And then, when it did, she would describe it. Wasn't writing a kind of soaring, an achievable form of flight, of fancy, of the imagination? (1.13.2)
Briony sees writing here as making anything possible. Which it sort of does, except not really.