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Top 500 Ian McEwan Quotes (2026 Update)
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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?”

301. “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: “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.”

302. “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: “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.”

303. “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: “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.”

304. “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.”

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.”

305. “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: “A gated community of a historical sort, a fortress of barristers and judges who were also musicians, wine fanciers, would-be writers, fly fishermen and raconteurs. A nest of gossip and expertise, and a delightful garden still haunted by the reasonable spirit of Francis Bacon. She loved it here and never wanted to leave.”

306. “A gated community of a historical sort, a fortress of barristers and judges who were also musicians, wine fanciers, would-be writers, fly fishermen and raconteurs. A nest of gossip and expertise, and a delightful garden still haunted by the reasonable spirit of Francis Bacon. She loved it here and never wanted to leave.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “Now I must listen again to Claude’s set piece on menu terms, as if he’s the first ever to spot these unimportant absurdities. He lingers on “pan-fried.” What is pan but a deceitful benediction on the vulgar and unhealthy fried?”

307. “Now I must listen again to Claude’s set piece on menu terms, as if he’s the first ever to spot these unimportant absurdities. He lingers on “pan-fried.” What is pan but a deceitful benediction on the vulgar and unhealthy fried?”

Ian McEwan Quote: “Birth, death, and frailty in between. Rise and fall- this was the doctor’s business, and it was literature’s too.”

308. “Birth, death, and frailty in between. Rise and fall- this was the doctor’s business, and it was literature’s too.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “The self-made hell was an interesting construct. Nobody escaped making one, at least one, in a lifetime. Some lives were nothing but. It was a tautology that self-inflicted misery was an extension of character.”

309. “The self-made hell was an interesting construct. Nobody escaped making one, at least one, in a lifetime. Some lives were nothing but. It was a tautology that self-inflicted misery was an extension of character.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “A partir de cierta edad, un trayecto por la ciudad se vuelve ingratamente meditabundo. Las direcciones de los muertos se amontonan.”

310. “A partir de cierta edad, un trayecto por la ciudad se vuelve ingratamente meditabundo. Las direcciones de los muertos se amontonan.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “A blend of desolation and outrage. Or longing and fury. She wanted him back, she never wanted to see him again.”

311. “A blend of desolation and outrage. Or longing and fury. She wanted him back, she never wanted to see him again.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “El amor sufre luengo y es amable; el amor no envidia; el amor no se jacta, no es pomposo, no se comporta de una forma indecorosa, no busca su provecho, no se deja provocar, no medita maldades; se deleita no en la iniquidad, sino en la verdad...”

312. “El amor sufre luengo y es amable; el amor no envidia; el amor no se jacta, no es pomposo, no se comporta de una forma indecorosa, no busca su provecho, no se deja provocar, no medita maldades; se deleita no en la iniquidad, sino en la verdad...”

Ian McEwan Quote: “I’ll wait for you. Come back.” She meant it. Time would show she really meant it.”

313. “I’ll wait for you. Come back.” She meant it. Time would show she really meant it.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “How like Hermione Lola was, to remain guiltless while others destroyed themselves at her prompting.”

314. “How like Hermione Lola was, to remain guiltless while others destroyed themselves at her prompting.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “How easy it was to drift through an unchosen life, in a succession of reactions to events. He.”

315. “How easy it was to drift through an unchosen life, in a succession of reactions to events. He.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “As if marriages were a series of corrected drafts.”

316. “As if marriages were a series of corrected drafts.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “She had a knack or weakness for laughing boisterously at her own anecdotes – not, I thought, because she found herself funny, but because she thought that life needed celebrating and wanted others to join in.”

317. “She had a knack or weakness for laughing boisterously at her own anecdotes – not, I thought, because she found herself funny, but because she thought that life needed celebrating and wanted others to join in.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “She would never be able to console herself that she was pressured or bullied. She never was. She trapped herself, she marched into the labyrinth of her own construction, and was too young, too awestruck, too keen to please, to insist on making her own way back. She was not endowed with, or old enough to possess, such independence or spirit. An imposing congregation had massed itself around her first certainties, and now it was waiting and she could not disappoint it at the altar.”

318. “She would never be able to console herself that she was pressured or bullied. She never was. She trapped herself, she marched into the labyrinth of her own construction, and was too young, too awestruck, too keen to please, to insist on making her own way back. She was not endowed with, or old enough to possess, such independence or spirit. An imposing congregation had massed itself around her first certainties, and now it was waiting and she could not disappoint it at the altar.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “It is hard to slash at nettles for long without a story imposing itself, and Briony was soon absorbed and grimly content, even though she appeared to the world like a girl in the grip of a terrible mood.”

319. “It is hard to slash at nettles for long without a story imposing itself, and Briony was soon absorbed and grimly content, even though she appeared to the world like a girl in the grip of a terrible mood.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “But Cecilia, having learned modern forms of snobbery at Cambridge, considered a man with a degree in chemistry incomplete as a human being.”

320. “But Cecilia, having learned modern forms of snobbery at Cambridge, considered a man with a degree in chemistry incomplete as a human being.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “I met evil and discovered God. I call it my discovery, but of course, it’s nothing new, and it’s not mine. Everyone has to make it for himself. People use different languages to describe it. I suppose all the great world religions began with individuals making inspired contact with a spiritual reality and then trying to keep that knowledge alive. Most of it gets lost in rules and practices and addiction to power.”

321. “I met evil and discovered God. I call it my discovery, but of course, it’s nothing new, and it’s not mine. Everyone has to make it for himself. People use different languages to describe it. I suppose all the great world religions began with individuals making inspired contact with a spiritual reality and then trying to keep that knowledge alive. Most of it gets lost in rules and practices and addiction to power.”

$Ian McEwan Quote: “The lecturer took a dim view of our species, of which psychopaths are a constant fraction, a human constant. Armed struggle, just or not, attracts them.”$

322. “The lecturer took a dim view of our species, of which psychopaths are a constant fraction, a human constant. Armed struggle, just or not, attracts them.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “The characters in this novel are inventions and bear no resemblance to people living or dead. Edward and Florence’s hotel – just over a mile south of Abbotsbury, Dorset, occupying an elevated position in a field behind the beach parking lot – does not exist.”

323. “The characters in this novel are inventions and bear no resemblance to people living or dead. Edward and Florence’s hotel – just over a mile south of Abbotsbury, Dorset, occupying an elevated position in a field behind the beach parking lot – does not exist.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “And so the dead might cease to grieve And we might make amends And there might be a pact between Dead friends and living friends.”

324. “And so the dead might cease to grieve And we might make amends And there might be a pact between Dead friends and living friends.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “The truth is, we love each other, we’ve never stopped, we’re obsessed. And we failed to do a thing with it. We couldn’t make a life. We couldn’t give up the love, but we wouldn’t bend to its power.”

325. “The truth is, we love each other, we’ve never stopped, we’re obsessed. And we failed to do a thing with it. We couldn’t make a life. We couldn’t give up the love, but we wouldn’t bend to its power.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “The revolutionary lone inventor was a fantasy of popular culture – and the Minister.”

326. “The revolutionary lone inventor was a fantasy of popular culture – and the Minister.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “Perowne sometimes wonders if, in his youth, he could ever have guessed that he would one day father a blues musician... But is there a lifetime’s satisfaction in twelve bars of three obvious chords? Perhaps it’s one of those cases of a microcosm giving you the whole world... as Daisy says, like a Jane Austen novel... There’s nothing in his own life that contains this inventiveness, this style of being free.”

327. “Perowne sometimes wonders if, in his youth, he could ever have guessed that he would one day father a blues musician... But is there a lifetime’s satisfaction in twelve bars of three obvious chords? Perhaps it’s one of those cases of a microcosm giving you the whole world... as Daisy says, like a Jane Austen novel... There’s nothing in his own life that contains this inventiveness, this style of being free.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “So what’s the use of a headache, a heartache? What am I being warned against, or told what to do? Don’t let your incestuous uncle and mother poison your father. Don’t waste your precious days idle and inverted. Get born and act!”

328. “So what’s the use of a headache, a heartache? What am I being warned against, or told what to do? Don’t let your incestuous uncle and mother poison your father. Don’t waste your precious days idle and inverted. Get born and act!”

Ian McEwan Quote: “He had no religious belief, but it was impossible not to think of an invisible presence or witness in the room, and that these words spoken aloud were like signatures on an unseen contract.”

329. “He had no religious belief, but it was impossible not to think of an invisible presence or witness in the room, and that these words spoken aloud were like signatures on an unseen contract.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “Here was a surprise, a love affair, an affair of love, as he entered his seventies.”

330. “Here was a surprise, a love affair, an affair of love, as he entered his seventies.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “When it comes to being reasonable, they rather go over the top.”

331. “When it comes to being reasonable, they rather go over the top.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “For one can assume too much sometimes, in fits of conceited self-blame.”

332. “For one can assume too much sometimes, in fits of conceited self-blame.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “Do you know when Jehovah’s Witnesses were commanded to refuse blood transfusions?” “It’s set down in Genesis. It dates from the Creation.” “It dates from 1945, Mr. Henry. Before then it was perfectly acceptable.”

333. “Do you know when Jehovah’s Witnesses were commanded to refuse blood transfusions?” “It’s set down in Genesis. It dates from the Creation.” “It dates from 1945, Mr. Henry. Before then it was perfectly acceptable.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “Love stories like Jane Austen’s used to conclude chastely with preparations for a wedding. Now their climax lay on the far side of carnal knowledge, where all of complexity waited.”

334. “Love stories like Jane Austen’s used to conclude chastely with preparations for a wedding. Now their climax lay on the far side of carnal knowledge, where all of complexity waited.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “Heller’s Catch-18, Fitzgerald’s The High-Bouncing Lover, Orwell’s The Last Man in Europe, Tolstoy’s All’s Well That Ends Well.”

335. “Heller’s Catch-18, Fitzgerald’s The High-Bouncing Lover, Orwell’s The Last Man in Europe, Tolstoy’s All’s Well That Ends Well.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “But what troubled her was unutterable, and she could barely frame it for herself. Where he merely suffered conventional first-night nerves, she experienced a visceral dread, a helpless disgust as palpable as seasickness.”

336. “But what troubled her was unutterable, and she could barely frame it for herself. Where he merely suffered conventional first-night nerves, she experienced a visceral dread, a helpless disgust as palpable as seasickness.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “No child is an island. She thought her responsibilities ended at the court room walls. But how could they? He came to find her, wanting what everyone wanted, and what only free-thinking people, not the supernatural, could give. Meaning.”

337. “No child is an island. She thought her responsibilities ended at the court room walls. But how could they? He came to find her, wanting what everyone wanted, and what only free-thinking people, not the supernatural, could give. Meaning.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “By what logic or motivation or helpless surrender did we all, hour by hour, transport ourselves within a generation from the thrill of optimism at Berlin’s falling Wall to the storming of the American Capitol?”

338. “By what logic or motivation or helpless surrender did we all, hour by hour, transport ourselves within a generation from the thrill of optimism at Berlin’s falling Wall to the storming of the American Capitol?”

Ian McEwan Quote: “In that time, moral standards were high in public life and so, therefore, was hypocrisy.”

339. “In that time, moral standards were high in public life and so, therefore, was hypocrisy.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “The years slid over old deaths like a heavy lid. Nearly everything that happens to you in life you forget. Should have kept a journal.”

340. “The years slid over old deaths like a heavy lid. Nearly everything that happens to you in life you forget. Should have kept a journal.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “It was exhilarating, at least at first, to live in a city of narcissists.”

341. “It was exhilarating, at least at first, to live in a city of narcissists.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “She had vanished into an intact inner world of which the writing was no more than the visible surface, the protective crust which even, or especially, a loving mother could not penetrate.”

342. “She had vanished into an intact inner world of which the writing was no more than the visible surface, the protective crust which even, or especially, a loving mother could not penetrate.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “We’re bound by the same rules that dog out pets. The great chain of non-being is round our necks too.”

343. “We’re bound by the same rules that dog out pets. The great chain of non-being is round our necks too.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “She had returned from Cambridge with a vague notion that her family was owed an uninterrupted stretch of her company.”

344. “She had returned from Cambridge with a vague notion that her family was owed an uninterrupted stretch of her company.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “This time she paused to peer out of the window at the dusk and wonder where her sister was. Drowned in the lake, ravished by gypsies, struck by a passing motor car, she thought ritually, a sound principal being that nothing was ever as one imagined it, and this was an efficient means of excluding the worst.”

345. “This time she paused to peer out of the window at the dusk and wonder where her sister was. Drowned in the lake, ravished by gypsies, struck by a passing motor car, she thought ritually, a sound principal being that nothing was ever as one imagined it, and this was an efficient means of excluding the worst.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “It can happen sometimes, with those who brood on an injustice, that a taste for revenge can usefully combine with a sense of obligation.”

346. “It can happen sometimes, with those who brood on an injustice, that a taste for revenge can usefully combine with a sense of obligation.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “So, getting closer, my idea was To be. Or if not that, its grammatical variant, is. This was my aboriginal notion and here’s the crux – is. Just that. In the spirit of Es muss sein. The beginning of conscious life was the end of illusion, the illusion of non-being, and the eruption of the real. The triumph of realism over magic, of is over seems.”

347. “So, getting closer, my idea was To be. Or if not that, its grammatical variant, is. This was my aboriginal notion and here’s the crux – is. Just that. In the spirit of Es muss sein. The beginning of conscious life was the end of illusion, the illusion of non-being, and the eruption of the real. The triumph of realism over magic, of is over seems.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “There are some decisions, even moral ones, that are formed in regions below conscious thought.”

348. “There are some decisions, even moral ones, that are formed in regions below conscious thought.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “Their friendship had become vague and even constrained in recent years, but it was still an old habit, and to break it now in order to become strangers on intimate terms required a clarity of purpose which had temporarily deserted them.”

349. “Their friendship had become vague and even constrained in recent years, but it was still an old habit, and to break it now in order to become strangers on intimate terms required a clarity of purpose which had temporarily deserted them.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “She found his testicles first and, not at all afraid now, she curled her fingers softly around this extraordinary bristling item she had seen in different forms on dogs and horses, but had never quite believed could fit comfortably on adult humans.”

350. “She found his testicles first and, not at all afraid now, she curled her fingers softly around this extraordinary bristling item she had seen in different forms on dogs and horses, but had never quite believed could fit comfortably on adult humans.”

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