Ian McEwan quotes

Wasn't writing a kind of soaring, an achievable form of flight, of fancy, of the imagination? (Ian McEwan)
A story was a form of telepathy. By means of inking symbols onto a page, she was able to send thoughts and feelings from her mind to her reader's. It was a magical process, so commonplace that no one stopped to wonder at it. View quote
Ian McEwan
I've never had a moment's doubt. I love you. I believe in you completely. You are my dearest one. My reason for life. Cee. View quote
Ian McEwan
It wasn't torpor that kept her - she was often restless to the point of irritability. She simply liked to feel that she was prevented from leaving, that she was needed. View quote
Ian McEwan
However, withered, I still feel myself to be exactly the same person I've always been. Hard to explain that to the young. we may look truly reptilian, but we're not a separate tribe. View quote
Ian McEwan
This is how the entire course of a life can be changed - by doing nothing. View quote
Ian McEwan
A person is, among all else, a material thing, easily torn and not easily mended. View quote
Ian McEwan
We know so little about each other. We lie mostly submerged, like ice floes, with our visible social selves projecting only cool and white. View quote
Ian McEwan
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. View quote
Ian McEwan
How guilt refined the methods of self-torture, threading the beads of detail into an eternal loop, a rosary to be fingered for a lifetime. View quote
Ian McEwan
That love which does not build a foundation on good sense is doomed. (Ian McEwan)
Dearest Cecilia, You'd be forgiven for thinking me mad, the way I acted this afternoon. The truth is I feel rather light headed and foolish in your presence, Cee, and I don't think I can blame the heat. View quote
Ian McEwan
At that moment, the urge to be writing was stronger than any notion she had of what she might write. View quote
Ian McEwan
From this new and intimate perspective, she learned a simple, obvious thing she had always known, and everyone knew; that a person is, among all else, a material thing, easily torn, not easily mended. View quote
Ian McEwan
These were everyday sounds magnified by darkness. And darkness was nothing - it was not a substance, it was not a presence, it was no more than an absence of light. View quote
Ian McEwan
Nothing that can be, can come between me and the full prospect of my hopes. View quote
Ian McEwan
He had never before felt so self-consciously young, nor experienced such appetite, such impatience for the story to begin. View quote
Ian McEwan
And though you think the world is at your feet, it can rise up and tread on you. View quote
Ian McEwan
Falling in love could be achieved in a single word--a glance. View quote
Ian McEwan
Find you, love you, marry you, and live without shame. View quote
Ian McEwan
She lay in the dark and knew everything. (Ian McEwan)
It was not generally realized that what children mostly wanted was to be left alone. View quote
Ian McEwan
He knew these last lines by heart and mouthed them now in the darkness. My reason for life. Not living, but life. That was the touch. And she was his reason for life, and why he must survive. View quote
Ian McEwan
Nothing was to be lost by beginning at the beginning... View quote
Ian McEwan
Is there any meaning in my life that the inevitable death awaiting me does not destory? View quote
Ian McEwan