Ian McEwan quotes - page 3

The world should take note: not everything is getting worse. (Ian McEwan)
Finally, you had to measure yourself by other people - there really was nothing else. every now and then, quite unintentionally, someone taught you something about yourself. View quote
Ian McEwan
I turned the pages so fast. And I suppose I was, in my mindless way, looking for a something, version of myself, a heroine I could slip inside as one might a pair of favourite shoes. View quote
Ian McEwan
In my dreams I kiss your cunt, your sweet wet cunt. In my thoughts I make love to you all day long. View quote
Ian McEwan
When it's gone, you'll know what a gift love was. You'll suffer like this. So go back and fight to keep it. View quote
Ian McEwan
It was always the view of my parents... that hot weather encouraged loose morals among young people. View quote
Ian McEwan
It wasn't only wickedness and scheming that made people unhappy, it was confusion and misunderstanding; above all, it was the failure to grasp the simple truth that other people are as real as you. View quote
Ian McEwan
The cost of oblivious daydreaming was always this moment of return, the realignment with what had been before and now seemed a little worse. View quote
Ian McEwan
All she had needed was the certainty of his love, and his reassurance that there was no hurry when a lifetime lay ahead of them. View quote
Ian McEwan
come back, come back to me. View quote
Ian McEwan
But it was too interesting, too new, too flattering, too deeply comforting to resist, it was a liberation to be in love and say so, and she could only let herself go deeper. (Ian McEwan)
It is shaming sometimes how the body will not, or cannot, lie about emotions. Who, for decorum's sake, has ever slowed his heart, or muted a blush? View quote
Ian McEwan
one could drown in irrelevance. View quote
Ian McEwan
When they kissed she immediately felt his tongue, tensed and strong, pushing past her teeth, like some bully shouldering his way into a room. Entering her. View quote
Ian McEwan
She would simply wait on the bridge, calm and obstinate, until events, real events, not her own fantasies, roe to her challenge, and dispelled her insignificance. View quote
Ian McEwan
When there are no consequences, being wrong is simply a diversion. View quote
Ian McEwan
The luxury of being half-asleep, exploring the fringes of psychosis in safety. View quote
Ian McEwan
Let the guilty bury the innocent, and let no one change the evidence. View quote
Ian McEwan
I was the basest of readers. All I wanted was my own world, and myself in it, given back to me in artful shapes and accessible form. View quote
Ian McEwan
Nations are never virtuous, though they might sometimes think they are. View quote
Ian McEwan
I did not kill my father, but I sometimes felt I had helped him on his way. (Ian McEwan)
He had once felt light on the ground. He used to think his life was an open-ended adventure, he used to give things away, it amused him when the unexpected happened, benevolent coincidences used to bear him along. When had all that stopped? View quote
Ian McEwan
You want a picture of futility? It's a tunnel in the desert, from nowhere to nowhere, four hundred and fifty feet long. View quote
Ian McEwan
How can one understand the inner life of a character, real or fictional, without knowing the state of her finances? View quote
Ian McEwan
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. View quote
Ian McEwan