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Top 500 Ian McEwan Quotes (2025 Update)
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Ian McEwan Quote: “Both men accepted that the nature of the request, its intimacy and self-conscious reflection on their friendship, had created, for the moment, an uncomfortable emotional proximity which was best dealt with by their parting without another word.”

201. “Both men accepted that the nature of the request, its intimacy and self-conscious reflection on their friendship, had created, for the moment, an uncomfortable emotional proximity which was best dealt with by their parting without another word.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “By concentrating on what is good in people, by appealing to their idealism and their sense of justice, and by asking them to put their faith in the future, socialists put themselves at a severe disadvantage.”

202. “By concentrating on what is good in people, by appealing to their idealism and their sense of justice, and by asking them to put their faith in the future, socialists put themselves at a severe disadvantage.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “Only in fairy tales are unwanted babies orphaned upwards.”

203. “Only in fairy tales are unwanted babies orphaned upwards.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “Marriage was the thing, or rather, a wedding was, with its formal neatness of virtue rewarded, the thrill of its pageantry and banqueting, and dizzy promise of lifelong union.”

204. “Marriage was the thing, or rather, a wedding was, with its formal neatness of virtue rewarded, the thrill of its pageantry and banqueting, and dizzy promise of lifelong union.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “In the minds of the principals, the history of the marriage was redrafted to have been always doomed, love was recast as delusion.”

205. “In the minds of the principals, the history of the marriage was redrafted to have been always doomed, love was recast as delusion.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “She sleepwalked from moment to moment, and whole months slipped by without memory, without bearing the faintest imprint of her conscious will.”

206. “She sleepwalked from moment to moment, and whole months slipped by without memory, without bearing the faintest imprint of her conscious will.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “I’ve heard it argued that long ago pain begat consciousness... Adversity forced awareness on us, and it works, it bites us when we go too near the fire, when we love too hard. Those felt sensations are the beginning of the invention of the self... God said, Let there be pain. And there was poetry. Eventually.”

207. “I’ve heard it argued that long ago pain begat consciousness... Adversity forced awareness on us, and it works, it bites us when we go too near the fire, when we love too hard. Those felt sensations are the beginning of the invention of the self... God said, Let there be pain. And there was poetry. Eventually.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “Childhoods shine through adult skin, helpfully or not.”

208. “Childhoods shine through adult skin, helpfully or not.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “Who you get, and how it works out- there’s so much luck involved, as well as the million branching consequences of your conscious choice of a mate, that no one and no amount of talking can untangle it if it turns out unhappily.”

209. “Who you get, and how it works out- there’s so much luck involved, as well as the million branching consequences of your conscious choice of a mate, that no one and no amount of talking can untangle it if it turns out unhappily.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “But on this particular morning, weary of books and birdsong and country peace, Edward took his rickety childhood bike from the shed, raised the saddle, pumped up the tired and set off with no particular plan. He had a pound note and two half crowns in his pocket and all he wanted was forward movement.”

210. “But on this particular morning, weary of books and birdsong and country peace, Edward took his rickety childhood bike from the shed, raised the saddle, pumped up the tired and set off with no particular plan. He had a pound note and two half crowns in his pocket and all he wanted was forward movement.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “And foe-of-convenience, the United States, barely the hope of the world, guilty of torture, helpless before its sacred text conceived in an age of powdered wigs, a constitution as unchallengeable as the Koran.”

211. “And foe-of-convenience, the United States, barely the hope of the world, guilty of torture, helpless before its sacred text conceived in an age of powdered wigs, a constitution as unchallengeable as the Koran.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “I felt stifled. Everything I looked at reminded me of myself.”

212. “I felt stifled. Everything I looked at reminded me of myself.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “Love wasn’t possible without a self, and nor was thinking.”

213. “Love wasn’t possible without a self, and nor was thinking.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “She knew very well that people fell out, even stormily, and then made up. But she did not know how to start – she simply did not have the trick of it, the row that cleared the air, and could never quite believe that hard words could be unsaid or forgotten.”

214. “She knew very well that people fell out, even stormily, and then made up. But she did not know how to start – she simply did not have the trick of it, the row that cleared the air, and could never quite believe that hard words could be unsaid or forgotten.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “If I could write the perfect novella I would die happy.”

215. “If I could write the perfect novella I would die happy.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “We live alongside this torment and aren’t amazed when we still find happiness, even love. Artificial minds are not so well defended.”

216. “We live alongside this torment and aren’t amazed when we still find happiness, even love. Artificial minds are not so well defended.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “Either I’ve always spoken to her from the heart in times like this, or I never have and I don’t know what it means.”

217. “Either I’ve always spoken to her from the heart in times like this, or I never have and I don’t know what it means.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “And I was with the man I loved and we were rabbiting on about how we were going to help change the world, and we were on our way home to start our lives together. I even remember thinking to myself, I’ve never been happier than this. This is it!”

218. “And I was with the man I loved and we were rabbiting on about how we were going to help change the world, and we were on our way home to start our lives together. I even remember thinking to myself, I’ve never been happier than this. This is it!”

Ian McEwan Quote: “It’s in me alone that my parents forever mingle, sweetly, sourly, along separate sugar-phosphate backbones, the recipe for my essential self. I also blend John and Trudy in my daydreams – like every child of estranged parents, I long to remarry them, this base pair, and so unite my circumstances to my genome.”

219. “It’s in me alone that my parents forever mingle, sweetly, sourly, along separate sugar-phosphate backbones, the recipe for my essential self. I also blend John and Trudy in my daydreams – like every child of estranged parents, I long to remarry them, this base pair, and so unite my circumstances to my genome.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “I am uncertain whether our civilization at this turn of the millennium is cursed by too much or too little belief, whether people like Bernard and June cause the trouble, or people like me.”

220. “I am uncertain whether our civilization at this turn of the millennium is cursed by too much or too little belief, whether people like Bernard and June cause the trouble, or people like me.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “However close you get to others, you can never get inside them, even when you’re inside them.”

221. “However close you get to others, you can never get inside them, even when you’re inside them.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “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.”

222. “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.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “Novelists have to be adept at controlling the flow of information, and, most crucially, they have to be in charge of the narrative.”

223. “Novelists have to be adept at controlling the flow of information, and, most crucially, they have to be in charge of the narrative.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “In difficult moments it’s sometimes a good idea to ask yourself what it is you most want to be doing and consider how it can be achieved. If it can’t, move on to the second best thing.”

224. “In difficult moments it’s sometimes a good idea to ask yourself what it is you most want to be doing and consider how it can be achieved. If it can’t, move on to the second best thing.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “We’ve built a world too complicated and dangerous for our quarrelsome natures to manage.”

225. “We’ve built a world too complicated and dangerous for our quarrelsome natures to manage.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “We’ve built a world too complicated and dangerous for our quarrelsome natures to manage. In such hopelessness, the general vote will be for the supernatural. It’s dusk in the second Age of Reason. We were wonderful, but now we are doomed.”

226. “We’ve built a world too complicated and dangerous for our quarrelsome natures to manage. In such hopelessness, the general vote will be for the supernatural. It’s dusk in the second Age of Reason. We were wonderful, but now we are doomed.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “It was the reason he had survived. It was the ordinary way of saying she would refuse all other men. Only you. Come back.”

227. “It was the reason he had survived. It was the ordinary way of saying she would refuse all other men. Only you. Come back.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “But how to do feelings? All very well to write “She felt sad”, or describe what a sad person might do, but what of sadness itself, how was that put across so it could be felt in all its lowering immediacy? Even harder was the threat, or the confusion of feeling contradictory things.”

228. “But how to do feelings? All very well to write “She felt sad”, or describe what a sad person might do, but what of sadness itself, how was that put across so it could be felt in all its lowering immediacy? Even harder was the threat, or the confusion of feeling contradictory things.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “Unlike in Daisy’s novels, moments of precise reckoning are rare in real life; questions of misinterpretations are not often resolved. Nor do they remain pressingly unresolved. They simply fade. People don’t remember clearly, or they die, or the questions die and new ones take their place.”

229. “Unlike in Daisy’s novels, moments of precise reckoning are rare in real life; questions of misinterpretations are not often resolved. Nor do they remain pressingly unresolved. They simply fade. People don’t remember clearly, or they die, or the questions die and new ones take their place.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “The thing about Satan is that he’s amazingly sophisticated. He puts a stupid idea like satanic whatever, abuse, into people’s minds, then he lets it get disproved so everyone thinks that he doesn’t exist after all, and then he’s free to do his worst.”

230. “The thing about Satan is that he’s amazingly sophisticated. He puts a stupid idea like satanic whatever, abuse, into people’s minds, then he lets it get disproved so everyone thinks that he doesn’t exist after all, and then he’s free to do his worst.”

$Ian McEwan Quote: “Everything that impeded him had to be outweighed, even if only by a fraction, by all that drove him on.”$

231. “Everything that impeded him had to be outweighed, even if only by a fraction, by all that drove him on.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “There are not many options for the evening that follows an afternoon of drinking. Only two in fact; remorse, or more drinking and then remorse.”

232. “There are not many options for the evening that follows an afternoon of drinking. Only two in fact; remorse, or more drinking and then remorse.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “It’s beautiful here and we’re still unhappy.”

233. “It’s beautiful here and we’re still unhappy.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “Consent has rough edges.”

234. “Consent has rough edges.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “And foe-of-convenience, the United States, barely the hope of the world, guilty of torture, helpless before its sacred text conceived in an age of powdered wigs, a constitution as unchallengeable as the Koran. Its nervous population obese, fearful, tormented by inarticulate anger, contemptuous of governance, murdering sleep with every new handgun. Africa.”

235. “And foe-of-convenience, the United States, barely the hope of the world, guilty of torture, helpless before its sacred text conceived in an age of powdered wigs, a constitution as unchallengeable as the Koran. Its nervous population obese, fearful, tormented by inarticulate anger, contemptuous of governance, murdering sleep with every new handgun. Africa.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “Without a specific destination, the visitors chose routes as they might choose a colour, and even the precise manner in which they became lost expressed their cumulative choices, their will.”

236. “Without a specific destination, the visitors chose routes as they might choose a colour, and even the precise manner in which they became lost expressed their cumulative choices, their will.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “Only two sexes. I was disappointed. If human bodies, minds, fates are so complex, if we are free like no other mammal, why limit the range?”

237. “Only two sexes. I was disappointed. If human bodies, minds, fates are so complex, if we are free like no other mammal, why limit the range?”

Ian McEwan Quote: “Muslim majority countries plagued by religious puritanism, by sexual sickness, by smothered invention.”

238. “Muslim majority countries plagued by religious puritanism, by sexual sickness, by smothered invention.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “We’re alone then, all of us, even me, each treading a deserted highway, toting in a bundle on a shouldered stick the schemes, the flow charts, for unconscious advancement.”

239. “We’re alone then, all of us, even me, each treading a deserted highway, toting in a bundle on a shouldered stick the schemes, the flow charts, for unconscious advancement.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “Most houses were crammed with immovable objects in their proper places, and each object told you what to do – here you ate, here you slept, here you sat. I tried to imagine carpets, wardrobes, pictures, chairs, a sewing machine, in these gaping, smashed-up rooms. I was pleased by how irrelevant, how puny such objects now appeared.”

240. “Most houses were crammed with immovable objects in their proper places, and each object told you what to do – here you ate, here you slept, here you sat. I tried to imagine carpets, wardrobes, pictures, chairs, a sewing machine, in these gaping, smashed-up rooms. I was pleased by how irrelevant, how puny such objects now appeared.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “The smile of a deceiver is flawed, insufficient. But can we see these muscles resting there inert when there’s so much local variation in faces, pads of fat, odd concavities, differences of bone structure? Especially difficult when the first and best unconscious move of a deliberate liar is to persuade himself he’s sincere. And once he’s sincere, all deception vanishes.”

241. “The smile of a deceiver is flawed, insufficient. But can we see these muscles resting there inert when there’s so much local variation in faces, pads of fat, odd concavities, differences of bone structure? Especially difficult when the first and best unconscious move of a deliberate liar is to persuade himself he’s sincere. And once he’s sincere, all deception vanishes.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “What people queued the entire weekend for became, six months later, as interesting as the socks on their feet. What happened to the cognition-enhancing helmets, the speaking fridges with a sense of smell? Gone the way of the mouse pad, the Filofax, the electric carving knife, the fondue set. The future kept arriving. Our bright new toys began to rust before we could get them home, and life went on much as before.”

242. “What people queued the entire weekend for became, six months later, as interesting as the socks on their feet. What happened to the cognition-enhancing helmets, the speaking fridges with a sense of smell? Gone the way of the mouse pad, the Filofax, the electric carving knife, the fondue set. The future kept arriving. Our bright new toys began to rust before we could get them home, and life went on much as before.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “Revenge may be exacted a hundred times over in one sleepless night. The impulse, the dreaming intention, is human, normal, and we should forgive ourselves. But the raised hand, the actual violent enactment, is cursed. The maths says so. There’ll be no reversion to the status quo ante, no balm, no sweet relief, or none that lasts. Only a second crime. Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves, Confucius said. Revenge unstitches a civilisation. It’s a reversion to constant, visceral fear.”

243. “Revenge may be exacted a hundred times over in one sleepless night. The impulse, the dreaming intention, is human, normal, and we should forgive ourselves. But the raised hand, the actual violent enactment, is cursed. The maths says so. There’ll be no reversion to the status quo ante, no balm, no sweet relief, or none that lasts. Only a second crime. Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves, Confucius said. Revenge unstitches a civilisation. It’s a reversion to constant, visceral fear.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “Above the rush-hour din it was her ideal self she heard, the pianist she could never become, performing faultlessly Bach’s second partita.”

244. “Above the rush-hour din it was her ideal self she heard, the pianist she could never become, performing faultlessly Bach’s second partita.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “It troubles him to consider the powerful currents and fine-tuning that alter fate, the close and distant influences, the accidents of character and circumstance.”

245. “It troubles him to consider the powerful currents and fine-tuning that alter fate, the close and distant influences, the accidents of character and circumstance.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “What was it with men, that they found elementary logic so difficult?”

246. “What was it with men, that they found elementary logic so difficult?”

Ian McEwan Quote: “It marked the beginning and, of course, an end. At that moment a chapter, no, a whole stage of my closed. Had I known, and had there been a spare second or two, I might have allowed myself a little nostalgia.”

247. “It marked the beginning and, of course, an end. At that moment a chapter, no, a whole stage of my closed. Had I known, and had there been a spare second or two, I might have allowed myself a little nostalgia.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “Twenty years ago I might have hired a professional listener, but somewhere along the way I had lost faith in the talking cure. A genteel fraud in my view.”

248. “Twenty years ago I might have hired a professional listener, but somewhere along the way I had lost faith in the talking cure. A genteel fraud in my view.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “And feeling clever, I’ve always thought, is just a sigh away from being cheerful.”

249. “And feeling clever, I’ve always thought, is just a sigh away from being cheerful.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “I actually find novels that are determined to be funny at every turn quite oppressive.”

250. “I actually find novels that are determined to be funny at every turn quite oppressive.”

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