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Top 500 Ian McEwan Quotes (2024 Update)
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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.”

251. “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.”

252. “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: “We’ll always be troubled by how things are – that’s how it stands with the difficult gift of consciousness.”

253. “We’ll always be troubled by how things are – that’s how it stands with the difficult gift of consciousness.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “What I’ve discovered and really confirmed to myself is that opera really likes loud colours, and you need something bold, something savage, unpredictable, passionate. You can’t really run a two-hour opera round some muted murmuring.”

254. “What I’ve discovered and really confirmed to myself is that opera really likes loud colours, and you need something bold, something savage, unpredictable, passionate. You can’t really run a two-hour opera round some muted murmuring.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “In the middle of a long, quiet night I might give my mother a sharp kick. She’ll wake, become insomniac, reach for the radio. Cruel sport, I know, but we are both better informed by the morning.”

255. “In the middle of a long, quiet night I might give my mother a sharp kick. She’ll wake, become insomniac, reach for the radio. Cruel sport, I know, but we are both better informed by the morning.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “In my experience an appreciative letter from a fellow writer means a lot.”

256. “In my experience an appreciative letter from a fellow writer means a lot.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “This unreal feeling was heightened when, after half an hour, she reached another High Street, more or less the same as the one she had left behind. That was all London was beyond its center, an agglomeration of dull little towns. She made a resolution never to live in any of them.”

257. “This unreal feeling was heightened when, after half an hour, she reached another High Street, more or less the same as the one she had left behind. That was all London was beyond its center, an agglomeration of dull little towns. She made a resolution never to live in any of them.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “Someone once asked me “If your life could be extended to 150 and you could start another career, would you?” And I said “No, thanks, I think I’ll stick at this.””

258. “Someone once asked me “If your life could be extended to 150 and you could start another career, would you?” And I said “No, thanks, I think I’ll stick at this.””

Ian McEwan Quote: “Religions, moral systems, her own included, wee like peaks in a dense mountain range seen from a great ditance, none obviously higher, more important, truer than another. What was to judge?”

259. “Religions, moral systems, her own included, wee like peaks in a dense mountain range seen from a great ditance, none obviously higher, more important, truer than another. What was to judge?”

Ian McEwan Quote: “What is pan but a deceitful benediction on the vulgar and unhealthy fried? Where else might one fry his scallops with chilli and lime juice? In an egg timer?”

260. “What is pan but a deceitful benediction on the vulgar and unhealthy fried? Where else might one fry his scallops with chilli and lime juice? In an egg timer?”

Ian McEwan Quote: “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. And only in a story could you enter these different minds and show how they had an equal value. That was the only moral a story need have.”

261. “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. And only in a story could you enter these different minds and show how they had an equal value. That was the only moral a story need have.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “The nineteenth century was closer than most women thought.”

262. “The nineteenth century was closer than most women thought.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “When love dies and marriage lies in ruins, the first casualty is honest memory, decent, impartial recall of the past. Too inconvenient, too damning of the present. It’s the spectre of old happiness at the feast of failure and desolation. So, against that headwind of forgetfulness I want to place my little candle of truth and see how far it throws its light.”

263. “When love dies and marriage lies in ruins, the first casualty is honest memory, decent, impartial recall of the past. Too inconvenient, too damning of the present. It’s the spectre of old happiness at the feast of failure and desolation. So, against that headwind of forgetfulness I want to place my little candle of truth and see how far it throws its light.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “The quiet gravity really wasn’t his style at all, which had always been both needy and dour; anxious to be liked, but incapable of taking friendliness for granted. A burden of the hugely rich.”

264. “The quiet gravity really wasn’t his style at all, which had always been both needy and dour; anxious to be liked, but incapable of taking friendliness for granted. A burden of the hugely rich.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “At times this biography made him comfortably nostalgic for a verdant, horse-drawn, affectionate England; at others he was faintly depressed by the way a whole life could be contained by a few hundred pages – bottled, like homemade chutney. And by how easily an existence, its ambitions, networks of family and friend, all its cherished stuff, solidly possessed, could so entirely vanish.”

265. “At times this biography made him comfortably nostalgic for a verdant, horse-drawn, affectionate England; at others he was faintly depressed by the way a whole life could be contained by a few hundred pages – bottled, like homemade chutney. And by how easily an existence, its ambitions, networks of family and friend, all its cherished stuff, solidly possessed, could so entirely vanish.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “The truth is I feel rather light headed and foolish in your presence, Cee, and I don’t think I can blame the heat.”

266. “The truth is I feel rather light headed and foolish in your presence, Cee, and I don’t think I can blame the heat.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “He needed that time edged with boredom in which fantasy could flourish.”

267. “He needed that time edged with boredom in which fantasy could flourish.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “It’s hilarious to recognize how completely another person resembles your imperfect self.”

268. “It’s hilarious to recognize how completely another person resembles your imperfect self.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “Europe was not simply a union that chiefly benefited large corporations. The history of the continental member states was vastly different from our own. They had suffered violent revolutions, invasions, occupations and dictatorships. They were therefore only too willing to submerge their identities in a common cause directed from Brussels. We, on the other hand, had lived unconquered for nearly a thousand years. Soon, we would live freely again.”

269. “Europe was not simply a union that chiefly benefited large corporations. The history of the continental member states was vastly different from our own. They had suffered violent revolutions, invasions, occupations and dictatorships. They were therefore only too willing to submerge their identities in a common cause directed from Brussels. We, on the other hand, had lived unconquered for nearly a thousand years. Soon, we would live freely again.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “I apologize for being obvious, but every time I watch the curtain come down on even a halfway decent production of a Shakespeare play I feel a little sorrowful that I’ll never know the man, or any man of such warm intelligence.”

270. “I apologize for being obvious, but every time I watch the curtain come down on even a halfway decent production of a Shakespeare play I feel a little sorrowful that I’ll never know the man, or any man of such warm intelligence.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “Being late was a special kind of modern suffering, with blended elements of rising tension, self-blame, self-pity, misanthropy, and a yearning for what could not be had outside theoretical physics: time reversal.”

271. “Being late was a special kind of modern suffering, with blended elements of rising tension, self-blame, self-pity, misanthropy, and a yearning for what could not be had outside theoretical physics: time reversal.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “A travelling salesman has a hundred cities on his patch. He knows all the distances between every pair of cities. He needs to visit each city once and end up at his starting point. What’s his shortest route?”

272. “A travelling salesman has a hundred cities on his patch. He knows all the distances between every pair of cities. He needs to visit each city once and end up at his starting point. What’s his shortest route?”

Ian McEwan Quote: “I was an intimate sort of child who never spoke up in groups. I preferred close friends.”

273. “I was an intimate sort of child who never spoke up in groups. I preferred close friends.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “Past a certain age, men froze into place; they tended to believe that, even in adversity, they were somehow at one with their fates. They were who they thought they were.”

274. “Past a certain age, men froze into place; they tended to believe that, even in adversity, they were somehow at one with their fates. They were who they thought they were.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “A twenty-one-year-old writer is likely to be inhibited by a lack of usable experience. Childhood and adolescence were something I knew.”

275. “A twenty-one-year-old writer is likely to be inhibited by a lack of usable experience. Childhood and adolescence were something I knew.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “I’ve yet to meet somebody who said, ‘Your stories are so revolting I couldn’t read them.’”

276. “I’ve yet to meet somebody who said, ‘Your stories are so revolting I couldn’t read them.’”

Ian McEwan Quote: “Words, as I’m beginning to appreciate, can make things true.”

277. “Words, as I’m beginning to appreciate, can make things true.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “Rebecca Goldstein is a rare find among contemporary novelists: she has intellectual muscle as well as a tender emotional reach.”

278. “Rebecca Goldstein is a rare find among contemporary novelists: she has intellectual muscle as well as a tender emotional reach.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “Oh, I’ve become immune to the Booker. I think we need something a little more like the Pulitzer prize, where there isn’t this great race.”

279. “Oh, I’ve become immune to the Booker. I think we need something a little more like the Pulitzer prize, where there isn’t this great race.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “Only when you are grown up, perhaps only when you have children yourself, do you fully understand that your own parents had a full and intricate existence before you were born.”

280. “Only when you are grown up, perhaps only when you have children yourself, do you fully understand that your own parents had a full and intricate existence before you were born.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “Older men were better companions, they were seasoned lovers, they knew the world, they knew themselves. Unlike younger men, they held their emotions in balance. They had read more, seen more, they were warmer, kinder, less boastful, more tolerant, less violent. They were more interesting, they could choose the wine. They had more money.”

281. “Older men were better companions, they were seasoned lovers, they knew the world, they knew themselves. Unlike younger men, they held their emotions in balance. They had read more, seen more, they were warmer, kinder, less boastful, more tolerant, less violent. They were more interesting, they could choose the wine. They had more money.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “My pleasure in reading is not necessarily the witnessing of something new, but of something familiar which I haven’t seen described.”

282. “My pleasure in reading is not necessarily the witnessing of something new, but of something familiar which I haven’t seen described.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “Writers are said to have superstitions and little rituals. Readers have them too.”

283. “Writers are said to have superstitions and little rituals. Readers have them too.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “The United States-It’s nervous poplulation obese, fearful, tormented by inarticulate anger, contemptuous of governance, murdering sleep with every new handgun.”

284. “The United States-It’s nervous poplulation obese, fearful, tormented by inarticulate anger, contemptuous of governance, murdering sleep with every new handgun.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “He’s never quite got the trick of conversation, tending to hear in dissenting views, however mild, a kind of affront, an invitation to mortal combat.”

285. “He’s never quite got the trick of conversation, tending to hear in dissenting views, however mild, a kind of affront, an invitation to mortal combat.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “That the world should be filled with such detail, such tiny points of human frailty, threatened to crush her and she had to look away.”

286. “That the world should be filled with such detail, such tiny points of human frailty, threatened to crush her and she had to look away.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “The Anglican service today was more familiar to me from movies. Like one of the great Shakespeare speeches, the graveside oration, studded in fragments in the memory, was a succession of brilliant phrases, book titles, dying cadences that breathed life, pure alertness, along the spine.”

287. “The Anglican service today was more familiar to me from movies. Like one of the great Shakespeare speeches, the graveside oration, studded in fragments in the memory, was a succession of brilliant phrases, book titles, dying cadences that breathed life, pure alertness, along the spine.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “I experienced only the glow of an extraordinary reading experience, a form of profound gratitude familiar to all who love literature.”

288. “I experienced only the glow of an extraordinary reading experience, a form of profound gratitude familiar to all who love literature.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “But of course, it had all been her – by her and about her, and now she was back in the world, not one she could make, but the one that had made her, and she felt herself shrinking under the early evening sky.”

289. “But of course, it had all been her – by her and about her, and now she was back in the world, not one she could make, but the one that had made her, and she felt herself shrinking under the early evening sky.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “My prejudice was that any machine that could not tell you by its very functioning how it should be used was not worth its keep.”

290. “My prejudice was that any machine that could not tell you by its very functioning how it should be used was not worth its keep.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “A contempt for things, for order, cleanliness, must lie on a spectrum with scorn for laws, values, for life itself. What is a criminal but a disordered spirit?”

291. “A contempt for things, for order, cleanliness, must lie on a spectrum with scorn for laws, values, for life itself. What is a criminal but a disordered spirit?”

Ian McEwan Quote: “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.”

292. “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.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “This commonplace cycle of falling asleep and waking, in darkness, under private cover, with another creature, a pale soft tender mammal, putting faces together in a ritual of affection, briefly settled in the eternal necessities of warmth, comfort, safety, crossing limbs to draw nearer – a simple daily consolation, almost too obvious, easy to forget by daylight.”

293. “This commonplace cycle of falling asleep and waking, in darkness, under private cover, with another creature, a pale soft tender mammal, putting faces together in a ritual of affection, briefly settled in the eternal necessities of warmth, comfort, safety, crossing limbs to draw nearer – a simple daily consolation, almost too obvious, easy to forget by daylight.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “The other day, Thomas reminded me of the famous Latin tag from Virgil’s Aeneid. Sunt lacrimae rerum – there are tears in the nature of things.”

294. “The other day, Thomas reminded me of the famous Latin tag from Virgil’s Aeneid. Sunt lacrimae rerum – there are tears in the nature of things.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “The end of secrecy would be the end of the novel – especially the English novel. The English novel requires social secrecy, personal secrecy.”

295. “The end of secrecy would be the end of the novel – especially the English novel. The English novel requires social secrecy, personal secrecy.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “Self-pity needed her full attention, and only in solitude could she breathe life into the lacerating details, but at the instant of her assent – how the tilt of a skull could change a life! – Lola had picked up the bundle of Briony’s manuscript from.”

296. “Self-pity needed her full attention, and only in solitude could she breathe life into the lacerating details, but at the instant of her assent – how the tilt of a skull could change a life! – Lola had picked up the bundle of Briony’s manuscript from.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “I will return. I will find you. Love you. Marry you. And live without shame.”

297. “I will return. I will find you. Love you. Marry you. And live without shame.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “Pessimism is too easy, even delicious, the badge and plume of intellectuals everywhere. It absolves the thinking classes of solutions.”

298. “Pessimism is too easy, even delicious, the badge and plume of intellectuals everywhere. It absolves the thinking classes of solutions.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “But hidden drawers, lockable diaries and cryptographic systems could not conceal from Briony the simple truth: she had no secrets. Her wish for a harmonious, organized world denied her the reckless possibilities of wrongdoing. Mayhem and destruction were too chaotic for her tastes, and she did not have it in her to be cruel.”

299. “But hidden drawers, lockable diaries and cryptographic systems could not conceal from Briony the simple truth: she had no secrets. Her wish for a harmonious, organized world denied her the reckless possibilities of wrongdoing. Mayhem and destruction were too chaotic for her tastes, and she did not have it in her to be cruel.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “Soon human meaning would be bleached from the rocks, the landscape would assume its beauty and draw him in; the unimaginable age of the mountains and the fine mesh of living things that lay across them would remind him that he was part of this order and insignificant within it, and he would be set free.”

300. “Soon human meaning would be bleached from the rocks, the landscape would assume its beauty and draw him in; the unimaginable age of the mountains and the fine mesh of living things that lay across them would remind him that he was part of this order and insignificant within it, and he would be set free.”

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