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Top 500 Ian McEwan Quotes (2026 Update)
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Ian McEwan Quote: “To mark R-Day we’ll mint a commemorative ten-pound coin. My idea is for a mirror image of a clock.”

351. “To mark R-Day we’ll mint a commemorative ten-pound coin. My idea is for a mirror image of a clock.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “Later, while my mother reclines, angry and exhausted, I recede into primal speculation. What kind of being is this? Is big John Cairncross our envoy to the future, the form of a man to end wars, rapine and enslavement and stand equal and caring with the women of the world? Or will he be trampled into oblivion by brutes? We shall find out.”

352. “Later, while my mother reclines, angry and exhausted, I recede into primal speculation. What kind of being is this? Is big John Cairncross our envoy to the future, the form of a man to end wars, rapine and enslavement and stand equal and caring with the women of the world? Or will he be trampled into oblivion by brutes? We shall find out.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “When player and listener together know the route so well, the pleasure is in the deviation, the unexpected turn against the grain. To see a world in a grain of sand.”

353. “When player and listener together know the route so well, the pleasure is in the deviation, the unexpected turn against the grain. To see a world in a grain of sand.”

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

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

Ian McEwan Quote: “Our desires permeate our perceptions.”

355. “Our desires permeate our perceptions.”

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.”

356. “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: “All day long, she realized, she had been feeling strange, and seeing strangely, as though everything was already long in the past, made more vivid by posthumous ironies she could not quite grasp.”

357. “All day long, she realized, she had been feeling strange, and seeing strangely, as though everything was already long in the past, made more vivid by posthumous ironies she could not quite grasp.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “Some endeavours are doomed at their inception, not by cowardice bu by their very nature.”

358. “Some endeavours are doomed at their inception, not by cowardice bu by their very nature.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “The sound of crickets, the feel of warm dried grass on the soles of his feet and the scent of baked earth pleased him. The big thick glass was icy in his hands. When he set it down, the tinkle of the ice cubes sounded personal.”

359. “The sound of crickets, the feel of warm dried grass on the soles of his feet and the scent of baked earth pleased him. The big thick glass was icy in his hands. When he set it down, the tinkle of the ice cubes sounded personal.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “Fresh-bearded young men with beautiful skin and long guns on Boulevard Voltaire gazing into the beautiful, disbelieving eyes of their own generation. It wasn’t hatred that killed the innocents but faith, that famished ghost, still revered, even in the mildest quarters. Long ago, someone pronounced groundless certainty a virtue.”

360. “Fresh-bearded young men with beautiful skin and long guns on Boulevard Voltaire gazing into the beautiful, disbelieving eyes of their own generation. It wasn’t hatred that killed the innocents but faith, that famished ghost, still revered, even in the mildest quarters. Long ago, someone pronounced groundless certainty a virtue.”

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

361. “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.”

362. “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: “Beyond all their hopes for a sane, just world free of war and class oppression, they feel that belonging to the Party associates them with all that is youthful, lively, intelligent and daring.”

363. “Beyond all their hopes for a sane, just world free of war and class oppression, they feel that belonging to the Party associates them with all that is youthful, lively, intelligent and daring.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “She could have phoned one of three friends, but she could not bear to hear herself explain her situation and make it irreversibly real.”

364. “She could have phoned one of three friends, but she could not bear to hear herself explain her situation and make it irreversibly real.”

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.”

365. “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: “These clever, amoral, inventive, destructive men, single-minded, selfish, emotionally cool, coolly attractive. I think I preferred them to the love of Jesus. They were so necessary, and not only to me. Without them we would still be living in mud huts, waiting to invent the wheel.”

366. “These clever, amoral, inventive, destructive men, single-minded, selfish, emotionally cool, coolly attractive. I think I preferred them to the love of Jesus. They were so necessary, and not only to me. Without them we would still be living in mud huts, waiting to invent the wheel.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “Thus the engine of self-pity began to turn.”

367. “Thus the engine of self-pity began to turn.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “But Baxter heard what Henry never has, and probably never will, despite all Daisy’s attempts to educate him. Some nineteenth-century poet – Henry has yet to find out whether this Arnold is famous or obscure – touched off in Baxter a yearning he could barely begin to define. That hunger is his claim on life.”

368. “But Baxter heard what Henry never has, and probably never will, despite all Daisy’s attempts to educate him. Some nineteenth-century poet – Henry has yet to find out whether this Arnold is famous or obscure – touched off in Baxter a yearning he could barely begin to define. That hunger is his claim on life.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “It bore her no malice, this animal, it was indifferent to her misery. It would move as a cage panther might: because it is awake, out of boredom, for the sake of movement itself, or for no reason at all, and with no awareness.”

369. “It bore her no malice, this animal, it was indifferent to her misery. It would move as a cage panther might: because it is awake, out of boredom, for the sake of movement itself, or for no reason at all, and with no awareness.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “This sense of absence had been growing... It was wearing into him. Last night he had woken besides his sleeping wife and had to touch his own face to be assured he remained a physical entity... He was widely known as man without edges, without faults or virtues a man who did not fully exist.”

370. “This sense of absence had been growing... It was wearing into him. Last night he had woken besides his sleeping wife and had to touch his own face to be assured he remained a physical entity... He was widely known as man without edges, without faults or virtues a man who did not fully exist.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “He had never learned anything new at a meeting.”

371. “He had never learned anything new at a meeting.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “Her cleverness, her love and knowledge of music, literature, her liveliness and charm when he was securely hers masked her desperation.”

372. “Her cleverness, her love and knowledge of music, literature, her liveliness and charm when he was securely hers masked her desperation.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “Daringly, they touched the tips of their tongues, and it was then she made the falling, sighing sound which, he realised later, marked a transformation. Until that moment, there was still something ludicrious about having a familiar face so close to one’s own. They felt watched by their bemused childhood selves.”

373. “Daringly, they touched the tips of their tongues, and it was then she made the falling, sighing sound which, he realised later, marked a transformation. Until that moment, there was still something ludicrious about having a familiar face so close to one’s own. They felt watched by their bemused childhood selves.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “Briony was her last, and nothing between now and the grave would be as elementally important or pleasurable as the care of a child.”

374. “Briony was her last, and nothing between now and the grave would be as elementally important or pleasurable as the care of a child.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “If the answer was yes, then the world, the social world, was unbearably complicated, with two billion voices, and everyone’s thoughts striving in equal importance and everyone’s claim on life as intense, and everyone thinking they were unique, when no one was. One could drown in irrelevance.”

375. “If the answer was yes, then the world, the social world, was unbearably complicated, with two billion voices, and everyone’s thoughts striving in equal importance and everyone’s claim on life as intense, and everyone thinking they were unique, when no one was. One could drown in irrelevance.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “Without faith, how open and beautiful and terrifying the world must have seemed.”

376. “Without faith, how open and beautiful and terrifying the world must have seemed.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “I’ll be an activist of the emotions, a loud, campaigning spirit fighting with tears and sighs to shape institutions around my vulnerable self. My identity will be my precious, my only true posession, my access to the only truth.”

377. “I’ll be an activist of the emotions, a loud, campaigning spirit fighting with tears and sighs to shape institutions around my vulnerable self. My identity will be my precious, my only true posession, my access to the only truth.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “He had reached that point – late thirties was common – when one’s parents set off on their downhill journey. Up until that time they had owned whoever they were, whatever they did. Now, little bits of their lives were beginning to fall away or fly off suddenly like the shattered wing mirror from the Major’s car. Then larger parts came away and needed to be gathered or caught mid-air by their children. It was a slow process. Ten.”

378. “He had reached that point – late thirties was common – when one’s parents set off on their downhill journey. Up until that time they had owned whoever they were, whatever they did. Now, little bits of their lives were beginning to fall away or fly off suddenly like the shattered wing mirror from the Major’s car. Then larger parts came away and needed to be gathered or caught mid-air by their children. It was a slow process. Ten.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “See? Reading you all night has strengthened me. That’s what God’s love does. If you’re beginning to feel uncomfortable now, it’s because the changes in you are already beginning to happen and one day you’ll be glad to say, Deliver me from meaninglessness.”

379. “See? Reading you all night has strengthened me. That’s what God’s love does. If you’re beginning to feel uncomfortable now, it’s because the changes in you are already beginning to happen and one day you’ll be glad to say, Deliver me from meaninglessness.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “Wasted time in beautiful places, lingering joyfully just inside the gates of paradise with the world’s colours aflame, always regretting the setting sun and the call home, the Edenic expulsion into the next day and its usual concerns.”

380. “Wasted time in beautiful places, lingering joyfully just inside the gates of paradise with the world’s colours aflame, always regretting the setting sun and the call home, the Edenic expulsion into the next day and its usual concerns.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “Love just follows you.”

381. “Love just follows you.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “If she went, what was he going to do with all these loving facts, these torturing details? If she wasn’t with him, how would he bear all this knowledge of her alone? The force of these considerations drove the words out of them, they came as easily as breath. “I love you,” he said.”

382. “If she went, what was he going to do with all these loving facts, these torturing details? If she wasn’t with him, how would he bear all this knowledge of her alone? The force of these considerations drove the words out of them, they came as easily as breath. “I love you,” he said.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “Your reputation will rest only on this, because ultimately reality is social, it’s among others that we have to live and their judgments matter.”

383. “Your reputation will rest only on this, because ultimately reality is social, it’s among others that we have to live and their judgments matter.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “He always had a paperback book, usually history, in his jacket pocket in case he found himself in a queue or a waiting room. He marked what he read with a pencil stub.”

384. “He always had a paperback book, usually history, in his jacket pocket in case he found himself in a queue or a waiting room. He marked what he read with a pencil stub.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “These disasters are the work of our twin natures. Clever and infantile. We’ve built a world too complicated and dangerous for our quarrelsome natures to manage.”

385. “These disasters are the work of our twin natures. Clever and infantile. We’ve built a world too complicated and dangerous for our quarrelsome natures to manage.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “Exhaustion made him vulnerableto the thoughts he wanted least.”

386. “Exhaustion made him vulnerableto the thoughts he wanted least.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “Stephen thought that if he could do everything with the intensity and abandonment with which he had once helped Kate build her castle, he would be a happy man of extraordinary powers.”

387. “Stephen thought that if he could do everything with the intensity and abandonment with which he had once helped Kate build her castle, he would be a happy man of extraordinary powers.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “It was either hilarious or it was tragic, that people should go about their daily business in the conventional way when they knew there was this.”

388. “It was either hilarious or it was tragic, that people should go about their daily business in the conventional way when they knew there was this.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “Only the backward look, the well-researched history could tell peaks and troughs from portals.”

389. “Only the backward look, the well-researched history could tell peaks and troughs from portals.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “At moments of important decision-making, the mind could be considered as a parliament, a debating chamber. Different factions contended, short- and long-term interests were entrenched in mutual loathing. Not only were motions tabled and opposed, certain proposals were aired in order to mask others. Sessions could be devious as well as stormy.”

390. “At moments of important decision-making, the mind could be considered as a parliament, a debating chamber. Different factions contended, short- and long-term interests were entrenched in mutual loathing. Not only were motions tabled and opposed, certain proposals were aired in order to mask others. Sessions could be devious as well as stormy.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “In those first moments it was easier to conceal a confusion of feeling behind a motherly tone.”

391. “In those first moments it was easier to conceal a confusion of feeling behind a motherly tone.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “The Greeks were right to invent their gods as argumentative unpredictable punitive members of a lofty elite. If he could believe in such all-too-human gods they would be the ones to fear. 4 In the third week after Alissa’s disappearance Roland set about imposing order on the overstuffed bookshelves around the table just off the kitchen.”

392. “The Greeks were right to invent their gods as argumentative unpredictable punitive members of a lofty elite. If he could believe in such all-too-human gods they would be the ones to fear. 4 In the third week after Alissa’s disappearance Roland set about imposing order on the overstuffed bookshelves around the table just off the kitchen.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “This sense of absence had been growing since Molly’s funeral. It was wearing into him. Last night he had woken beside his sleeping wife and had to touch his own face to be assured he remained a physical entity.”

393. “This sense of absence had been growing since Molly’s funeral. It was wearing into him. Last night he had woken beside his sleeping wife and had to touch his own face to be assured he remained a physical entity.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “He no longer cared much what others thought of him. There were few benefits in growing older, and this was one.”

394. “He no longer cared much what others thought of him. There were few benefits in growing older, and this was one.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “Is he about to become that man, that modern fool of a certain age, who finds himself pausing by shop windows to stare in at the saxophones or the motorbikes, or driven to find himself a mistress of his daughter’s age?”

395. “Is he about to become that man, that modern fool of a certain age, who finds himself pausing by shop windows to stare in at the saxophones or the motorbikes, or driven to find himself a mistress of his daughter’s age?”

Ian McEwan Quote: “She listed some relevant ingredients, goals towards which a child might grow. Economic and moral freedom, virtue, compassion and altruism, satisfying work through engagement with demanding tasks, a flourishing network of personal relationships, earning the esteem of others, pursuing larger meanings to one’s existence, and having at the centre of one’s life one or a small number of significant relations defined above all by love.”

396. “She listed some relevant ingredients, goals towards which a child might grow. Economic and moral freedom, virtue, compassion and altruism, satisfying work through engagement with demanding tasks, a flourishing network of personal relationships, earning the esteem of others, pursuing larger meanings to one’s existence, and having at the centre of one’s life one or a small number of significant relations defined above all by love.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “Certain artists in print or paint flourish, like babies-to-be, in confined spaces.”

397. “Certain artists in print or paint flourish, like babies-to-be, in confined spaces.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “It was still a novel and vertiginous experience for them to look for a minute on end into the eyes of another adult, without embarrassment or restraint.”

398. “It was still a novel and vertiginous experience for them to look for a minute on end into the eyes of another adult, without embarrassment or restraint.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “In fact, everyone he’s passing now along this pleasantly down-at-heel street looks happy enough, at least as content as he is. But for the professors in the academy, for the humanities generally, misery is more amenable to analysis: happiness is a harder nut to crack.”

399. “In fact, everyone he’s passing now along this pleasantly down-at-heel street looks happy enough, at least as content as he is. But for the professors in the academy, for the humanities generally, misery is more amenable to analysis: happiness is a harder nut to crack.”

Ian McEwan Quote: “It’s already clear to me how much of life is forgotten even as it happens. Most of it.”

400. “It’s already clear to me how much of life is forgotten even as it happens. Most of it.”

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