“My ideal state as a reader when I’m reading other people is feeling I’m vaguely wasting my time when I’m not reading… — Ian McEwan Copy Share Image
“At moments like this, his misanthropy sensitized him to the people packed tight around him, no longer fellow travelers but adversaries, competitors… — Ian McEwan Copy Share Image
“So, one-third of the time it's a bad idea to move, which means that two-thirds of the time it's a good idea.” — Ian McEwan Copy Share Image
“When love dies and a marriage lies in ruins, the first casualty is honest memory, decent, impartial recall of the past.” — Ian McEwan Copy Share Image
But to do its noticing and judging, poetry balances itself on the pinprick of the moment. Slowing down, stopping yourself completely, to… — Ian Mcewan Copy Share Image
“They were beyond the present, outside time, with no memories and no future. There was nothing but obliterating sensation, thrilling and swelling,… — Ian McEwan Copy Share Image
Novels help us to resist the temptation to think of the past as deficient. — Ian Mcewan Copy Share Image
“Being late was a special kind of modern suffering, with blended elements of rising tension, self-blame, self-pity, misanthropy, and a yearning for… — Ian McEwan Copy Share Image
It was thought, perception, sensations that interested her, the conscious mind as a river through time, and how to represent its onward… — Ian Mcewan Copy Share Image
“We often tell ourselves off for wasting time in chairs, fully dressed, when we could be doing the same lying down in… — Ian McEwan Copy Share Image
These memories sustained him, but not so easily. Too often they reminded him of where he was when he last summoned them.… — Ian Mcewan Copy Share Image
Four or five years - nothing at all. But no one over thirty could understand this peculiarly weighted and condensed time, from… — Ian Mcewan Copy Share Image
By concentrating on what is good in people, by appealing to their idealism and their sense of justice, and by asking them… — Ian Mcewan Copy Share Image
I'm holding back, delaying the information. I'm lingering in the prior moment because it was a time when other outcomes were still… — Ian Mcewan Copy Share Image
Let his name be cleared and everyone else adjust their thinking. He had put in time, now they must do the work.… — Ian Mcewan Copy Share Image
“Waiting. Simply one person doing nothing, over time, while another approached.” — Ian McEwan Copy Share Image
“We often told ourselves off for wasting time in chairs, fully dressed, talking, when we could be doing the same, lying down… — Ian McEwan Copy Share Image
“The past had shown him many times that the future would be its own solution.” — Ian McEwan Copy Share Image
“Beyond a certain age, a journey across the city becomes uncomfortably reflective...One day I too will prompt a moment's reflection in the… — Ian McEwan Copy Share Image
“He was thinking of that time, the way one does on long journeys when rootlessness and boredom, lack of sleep or routine… — Ian McEwan Copy Share Image
I’ll wait for you. Come back. The words were not meaningless, but they didn’t touch him now. It was clear enough -… — Ian Mcewan Copy Share Image
“Sex is a different medium, refracting time and sense, a biological hyperspace as remote from conscious existence as dreams, or as water… — Ian McEwan Copy Share Image
“There are these rare moments when musicians together touch something sweeter than they’ve ever found before in rehearsals or performance, beyond the… — Ian McEwan Copy Share Image
“As you will see, we do not believe that artists have an obligation to strike up attitudes to the war. Indeed, they are wise… — Ian McEwan Copy Share Image
You could say that all novels are spy novels and all novelists are spy masters. — Ian Mcewan Copy Share Image
I've never had a moment's doubt. I love you. I believe in you completely. You are my dearest one. My reason for life. — Ian Mcewan Copy Share Image
“It is shaming sometimes, how the body will not, or cannot, lie about emotions.” — Ian McEwan Copy Share Image
“While my friends struggled and calculated, I reached a solution by a set of floating steps that were partly visual, partly just a feeling… — Ian McEwan Copy Share Image
“Once, on a walk by a river- Eskdale in low reddish sunlight, with a dusting of snow- his daughter quoted to him an opening… — Ian McEwan Copy Share Image
“Perhaps it's one of those cases of a microcosm giving you the whole world. Like a spode dinner plate. Or a single cell. Or,… — Ian McEwan Copy Share Image
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… — Ian Mcewan Copy Share Image
“On Chesil Beach he could have called out to Florence, he could have gone after her. He did not know, or would not have… — Ian McEwan Copy Share Image
It was always the view of my parents...that hot weather encouraged loose morals among young people. — Ian Mcewan Copy Share Image
I apologize for being obvious, but every time I watch the curtain come down on even a halfway decent production of a Shakespeare play… — Ian Mcewan Copy Share Image
I would rather be physically disabled obviously than mentally. I would rather be paraplegic than nuts. And it is a terrifying prospect and actually… — Ian Mcewan Copy Share Image
