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Top 500 Ian McEwan Quotes (2026 Update)
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Ian McEwan Quote: “A consignment bound for Peru, Argentina’s ally, was blocked. But other countries, including Iran, were willing to sell. There was also a black market. British agents, posing as arms dealers, bought up the supply.”

451. “A consignment bound for Peru, Argentina’s ally, was blocked. But other countries, including Iran, were willing to sell. There was also a black market. British agents, posing as arms dealers, bought up the supply.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “I made the enthusiast’s mistake of assuming that everyone shared my previous ignorance.”

452. “I made the enthusiast’s mistake of assuming that everyone shared my previous ignorance.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “It is difficult to step outside the moment on any given day and ask the unnecessary, essential question, or to realize that however familiar, parents are also strangers to their children.”

453. “It is difficult to step outside the moment on any given day and ask the unnecessary, essential question, or to realize that however familiar, parents are also strangers to their children.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “At last he could admit to himself that he had never met anyone he loved as much, that he had never found anyone, man or woman, who matched her seriousness.”

454. “At last he could admit to himself that he had never met anyone he loved as much, that he had never found anyone, man or woman, who matched her seriousness.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “My own small discovery has been that this change is possible, it is within our power. Without a revolution of the inner life, however slow, all our big designs are worthless. The work we have to do is with ourselves if we’re going to be at peace with each other, I’m not saying it’ll happen. There’s a good chance it won’t. I’m saying it’s our only chance.”

455. “My own small discovery has been that this change is possible, it is within our power. Without a revolution of the inner life, however slow, all our big designs are worthless. The work we have to do is with ourselves if we’re going to be at peace with each other, I’m not saying it’ll happen. There’s a good chance it won’t. I’m saying it’s our only chance.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “Briony era una di quelle bambine possedute dal desiderio che al mondo fosse tutto assolutamente perfetto.”

456. “Briony era una di quelle bambine possedute dal desiderio che al mondo fosse tutto assolutamente perfetto.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “Why would the world configure itself so harshly?”

457. “Why would the world configure itself so harshly?”

Ian McEwan Quote: “The money to buy even the cheapest of these things had been earned by Clive dreaming up sounds, by putting one note in front of another. He had imagined everything here, he had willed it all to be here, without anyone’s help.”

458. “The money to buy even the cheapest of these things had been earned by Clive dreaming up sounds, by putting one note in front of another. He had imagined everything here, he had willed it all to be here, without anyone’s help.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “God was once supposed to be a grown-up, but in disputes He childishly took sides.”

459. “God was once supposed to be a grown-up, but in disputes He childishly took sides.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “Growing up in a cathedral precinct, what did I know of the absurdities of communism, of how brave man and women in bleak and remote penal colonies were reduced to thinking day by day of nothing else beyond their own survival?”

460. “Growing up in a cathedral precinct, what did I know of the absurdities of communism, of how brave man and women in bleak and remote penal colonies were reduced to thinking day by day of nothing else beyond their own survival?”

Ian McEwan Quote: “She resented the way she was listening out for him, her attention poised, holding its breath, for the creak of the door or a floorboard. Wanting it, dreading it.”

461. “She resented the way she was listening out for him, her attention poised, holding its breath, for the creak of the door or a floorboard. Wanting it, dreading it.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “He did not want to see her photograph and discover what the years had wrought, or hear about the details of her life. He preferred to preserve her as she was in his memories, with the dandelion in her buttonhole and the piece of velvet in her hair, the canvas bag across her shoulder, and the beautiful strong-boned face with its wide and artless smile.”

462. “He did not want to see her photograph and discover what the years had wrought, or hear about the details of her life. He preferred to preserve her as she was in his memories, with the dandelion in her buttonhole and the piece of velvet in her hair, the canvas bag across her shoulder, and the beautiful strong-boned face with its wide and artless smile.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “His right hemisphere had died. He knew so many people who had died that in his present state of dissociation he could begin to contemplate his own end as a commonplace – a flurry of burying or cremating, a welt of grief raised, then subsiding as life swept on. Perhaps he had already died.”

463. “His right hemisphere had died. He knew so many people who had died that in his present state of dissociation he could begin to contemplate his own end as a commonplace – a flurry of burying or cremating, a welt of grief raised, then subsiding as life swept on. Perhaps he had already died.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “This was still the era – it would end later in that famous decade – when to be young was a social encumbrance, a mark of irrelevance, a faintly embarrassing condition for which marriage was the beginning of a cure. Almost strangers, they stood, strangely together, on a new pinnacle of existence, gleeful that their new status promised to promote them out of their endless youth – Edward and Florence, free at last!”

464. “This was still the era – it would end later in that famous decade – when to be young was a social encumbrance, a mark of irrelevance, a faintly embarrassing condition for which marriage was the beginning of a cure. Almost strangers, they stood, strangely together, on a new pinnacle of existence, gleeful that their new status promised to promote them out of their endless youth – Edward and Florence, free at last!”

Ian McEwan Quote: “To love her was to be soothed.”

465. “To love her was to be soothed.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “Get in first and shape the terms.”

466. “Get in first and shape the terms.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “What must it be, to burst out of deep infant sleep into the shocking singular fact of existence.”

467. “What must it be, to burst out of deep infant sleep into the shocking singular fact of existence.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “I was pure and good. I loved it that they couldn’t understand how profound I was.”

468. “I was pure and good. I loved it that they couldn’t understand how profound I was.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “If I can’t get along with the father of my children, how can the world make progress?”

469. “If I can’t get along with the father of my children, how can the world make progress?”

Ian McEwan Quote: “She felt like a hospital patient who longs for her kindly visitor to leave so she can resume being ill.”

470. “She felt like a hospital patient who longs for her kindly visitor to leave so she can resume being ill.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “But there was that essence everyone forgets when a love recedes into the past – how it was, how it felt and tasted to be together through seconds, minutes and days, before everything that was taken for granted was discarded then overwritten by the tale of how it all ended, and then by the shaming inadequacies of memory. Paradise or.”

471. “But there was that essence everyone forgets when a love recedes into the past – how it was, how it felt and tasted to be together through seconds, minutes and days, before everything that was taken for granted was discarded then overwritten by the tale of how it all ended, and then by the shaming inadequacies of memory. Paradise or.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “But first he must cover the miles again, and go back north to the field where the farmer and his dog still walked behind the plough, and ask the Flemish lady and her son if they held him accountable for their deaths.”

472. “But first he must cover the miles again, and go back north to the field where the farmer and his dog still walked behind the plough, and ask the Flemish lady and her son if they held him accountable for their deaths.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “These clever, amoral, inventive, destructive men, single-minded, selfish, emotionally cool, coolly attractive. I think I preferred them to the love of Jesus.”

473. “These clever, amoral, inventive, destructive men, single-minded, selfish, emotionally cool, coolly attractive. I think I preferred them to the love of Jesus.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “And there was something I’ve since noticed over the years – the mountain range that separates the naked from the clothed man. Two men on one passport.”

474. “And there was something I’ve since noticed over the years – the mountain range that separates the naked from the clothed man. Two men on one passport.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “Get in first and shape the terms. He did so in quick short sentences, his smooth tenor’s voice as clear and precise as it was when he sang Goethe’s tragic poem.”

475. “Get in first and shape the terms. He did so in quick short sentences, his smooth tenor’s voice as clear and precise as it was when he sang Goethe’s tragic poem.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “The details were apt and convincing enough, but surely not so very difficult to marshal if you were halfway observant and had the patience to write them all down.”

476. “The details were apt and convincing enough, but surely not so very difficult to marshal if you were halfway observant and had the patience to write them all down.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “Lately I’ve noticed these mouths in some women of my age. A lifetime of putting out, as they saw it, and getting nothing back. The men were bastards, the social contract unjust, and biology itself an affliction.”

477. “Lately I’ve noticed these mouths in some women of my age. A lifetime of putting out, as they saw it, and getting nothing back. The men were bastards, the social contract unjust, and biology itself an affliction.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “How liberating to discover in the modern age that he, a city-dweller, an indoors man who lived by the keyboard and screen, could be tracked and ravaged and be an entire meal, a source of nourishment to others.”

478. “How liberating to discover in the modern age that he, a city-dweller, an indoors man who lived by the keyboard and screen, could be tracked and ravaged and be an entire meal, a source of nourishment to others.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “He should take a different bank card to replace one that was out of date. Cars no longer had CD players, so he should look one out if he was to play her favourite disc.”

479. “He should take a different bank card to replace one that was out of date. Cars no longer had CD players, so he should look one out if he was to play her favourite disc.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “She was touched by his delicacy, by the way he stared fiercely at his sheet of paper, perhaps trying to hear in advance his poem through her ears.”

480. “She was touched by his delicacy, by the way he stared fiercely at his sheet of paper, perhaps trying to hear in advance his poem through her ears.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “She went slowly along Theobald’s Road, still holding off the moment of her return, wondering again whether it was not love she had lost so much as a modern form of respectability, where it was not contempt and ostracism she feared, as in the novels of Flaubert and Tolstoy, but pity. To be the object of general pity was also a form of social death. The nineteenth century was closer that most women thought.”

481. “She went slowly along Theobald’s Road, still holding off the moment of her return, wondering again whether it was not love she had lost so much as a modern form of respectability, where it was not contempt and ostracism she feared, as in the novels of Flaubert and Tolstoy, but pity. To be the object of general pity was also a form of social death. The nineteenth century was closer that most women thought.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “Her college years felt like freedom to her.”

482. “Her college years felt like freedom to her.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “Instead, she found her argument in the “doctrine of necessity,” an idea established in common law that in certain limited circumstances, which no parliament would ever care to define, it was permissible to break the criminal law to prevent a greater evil.”

483. “Instead, she found her argument in the “doctrine of necessity,” an idea established in common law that in certain limited circumstances, which no parliament would ever care to define, it was permissible to break the criminal law to prevent a greater evil.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “The organ played a familiar introduction. Ever since his truculent fourth form at Berners Hall, he could not bring himself to sing a hymn. However sweet the melodies or the rhythm of the lines he could not get past the embarrassment of their blatant or childish untruths. But the point was not to believe but to join in, to be part of the community.”

484. “The organ played a familiar introduction. Ever since his truculent fourth form at Berners Hall, he could not bring himself to sing a hymn. However sweet the melodies or the rhythm of the lines he could not get past the embarrassment of their blatant or childish untruths. But the point was not to believe but to join in, to be part of the community.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “Los relatos no se venden. Los editores suelen hacer estas colecciones como un favor a sus autores consagrados.”

485. “Los relatos no se venden. Los editores suelen hacer estas colecciones como un favor a sus autores consagrados.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “She was one of those people who could not say if one note was lower or higher than another. This was no less a disability and misfortune than a clubfoot or a harelip...”

486. “She was one of those people who could not say if one note was lower or higher than another. This was no less a disability and misfortune than a clubfoot or a harelip...”

Ian McEwan Quote: “I’d like to shout down through a hole in the ceiling of time and advise the people of a hundred years ago: If you want your secrets kept, whisper them into the ear of your dearest, most trusted friend. Do not trust the keyboard and screen. If you do, we’ll know everything.”

487. “I’d like to shout down through a hole in the ceiling of time and advise the people of a hundred years ago: If you want your secrets kept, whisper them into the ear of your dearest, most trusted friend. Do not trust the keyboard and screen. If you do, we’ll know everything.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “The new, wellspring of all bad dreams. Driven by a self-harming compulsion, I listen closely to analysis and dissent.”

488. “The new, wellspring of all bad dreams. Driven by a self-harming compulsion, I listen closely to analysis and dissent.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “But when I was an energetic self-important 10-year-old and found myself in a roomful of grownups, I felt guilty, and thought it only polite to conceal the fun I was having elsewhere. When an aged figure addressed me – they were all aged – I worried that what showed in my face was pity.”

489. “But when I was an energetic self-important 10-year-old and found myself in a roomful of grownups, I felt guilty, and thought it only polite to conceal the fun I was having elsewhere. When an aged figure addressed me – they were all aged – I worried that what showed in my face was pity.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “Old Europa tosses in her dreams. She wants to help but she doesn’t want to share or lose what she has.”

490. “Old Europa tosses in her dreams. She wants to help but she doesn’t want to share or lose what she has.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “I wanted characters I could believe in, and I wanted to be made curious about what was to happen to them.”

491. “I wanted characters I could believe in, and I wanted to be made curious about what was to happen to them.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “Now here at last were the beginnings of desire, precise and alien, but clearly her own; and beyond, as though suspended above and behind her, just out of sight, was relief that she was just like everyone else... It was undeniable: she was not a separate subspecies of the human race. In triumph, she belonged among the generality.”

492. “Now here at last were the beginnings of desire, precise and alien, but clearly her own; and beyond, as though suspended above and behind her, just out of sight, was relief that she was just like everyone else... It was undeniable: she was not a separate subspecies of the human race. In triumph, she belonged among the generality.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “Our age could devise a passable replica of a human mind, but there was no one in our neighbourhood to fix a sash window, though a few had tried.”

493. “Our age could devise a passable replica of a human mind, but there was no one in our neighbourhood to fix a sash window, though a few had tried.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “And he saw the studio he was about to abandon for his bed as it might have appeared in a documentary film about himself that would reveal to a curious world how a masterpiece was born.”

494. “And he saw the studio he was about to abandon for his bed as it might have appeared in a documentary film about himself that would reveal to a curious world how a masterpiece was born.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “If only she could, like the mother of Jesus, arrive at that swollen state by magic.”

495. “If only she could, like the mother of Jesus, arrive at that swollen state by magic.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “Their love would have space and a society to grow in.”

496. “Their love would have space and a society to grow in.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “Then it came to her plainly what she felt about Jack’s return. So simple. It was disappointment that he had not stayed away. Just a little longer. Nothing more than that. Disappointment.”

497. “Then it came to her plainly what she felt about Jack’s return. So simple. It was disappointment that he had not stayed away. Just a little longer. Nothing more than that. Disappointment.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “They had been married six years, a time of slow, fine adjustments to the jostling principles of physical pleasure, domestic duty, and the necessity of solitude. Neglect of one led to diminishment or chaos in the others.”

498. “They had been married six years, a time of slow, fine adjustments to the jostling principles of physical pleasure, domestic duty, and the necessity of solitude. Neglect of one led to diminishment or chaos in the others.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “And these are only the ones I happen to know about. As soon as you discover you’re not the best, you throw it in and hate yourself. Same with relationships. You want too much and move on.”

499. “And these are only the ones I happen to know about. As soon as you discover you’re not the best, you throw it in and hate yourself. Same with relationships. You want too much and move on.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “Any five-year-old girl – though boys would do – gave substance to her continued.”

500. “Any five-year-old girl – though boys would do – gave substance to her continued.”

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