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All Quotes by Ian Mcewan
- All this happiness on display is suspect... If they think - and they could be right - that continued torture and summary executions, ethnic cleansing…
- It's the essence of a degenerating mind periodically, to lose all sense of continuous self, and therefore any regard for what others think of your…
- One important theme is the extent to which one can ever correct an error, especially outside any frame of religious forgiveness. All of us have…
- I don't believe there's any inherent darkness at the center of religion at all. I think religion actually is a morally neutral force.
- I don't really believe in evil at all.
- A person is, among all else, a material thing, easily torn and not easily mended.
- There did not have to be a moral. She need only show separate minds, as alive as her own, struggling with the idea that other…
- All she had needed was the certainty of his love, and his reassurance that there was no hurry when a lifetime lay ahead of them.
- Watching him during the first several minutes of his delivery, Cecilia felt a pleasant sinking sensation in her stomach as she contemplated how deliciously self-destructive…
- 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…
- 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…
- No one knows anything, really. It's all rented, or borrowed.
- How can a novelist achieve atonement when, with her absolute power of deciding outcomes, she is also God? There is no one, no entity or…
- It was common enough, to see so much death and want a child. Common, therefore human, and he wanted it all the more. When the…
- She had lolled about for three years at Girton with the kind of books she could equally have read at home--Jane Austen, Dickens, Conrad, all…
- It is photography itself that creates the illusion of innocence. Its ironies of frozen narrative lend to its subjects an apparent unawareness that they will…
- From this new and intimate perspective, she learned a simple, obvious thing she had always known, and everyone knew; that a person is, among all…
- 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…
- Without a revolution of the inner life, however slow, all our big designs are worthless. The work we have to do is with ourselves if…
- When he thought of her, it rather amazed him, that he had let that girl with her violin go. Now, of course, he saw that…
- He saw that no one owned anything really. It's all rented, or borrowed. Our possessions will outlast us, we'll desert them in the end.
- When we go on about the big things, the political situation, global warming, world poverty, it all looks really terrible, with nothing getting better, nothing…
- Especially difficult when the first and best unconscious move of a dedicated liar is to persuade himself he's sincere. And once he's sincere, all deception…
- It was thought, perception, sensations that interested her, the conscious mind as a river through time, and how to represent its onward roll, as well…
- Had it taken her this long to discover that she lacked some simple mental trick that everyone else had, a mechanism so ordinary that no…
More All Quotes
- Total loyalty is possible only when fidelity is emptied of all concrete content, from which changes of mind might naturally arise. — Hannah Arendt
- No cause is left but the most ancient of all, the one, in fact, that from the beginning of our history has… — Hannah Arendt
- The ultimate end of human acts is eudaimonia, happiness in the sense of living well, which all men desire; all acts are… — Hannah Arendt
- The new always happens against the overwhelming odds of statistical laws and their probability, which for all practical, everyday purposes amounts to… — Hannah Arendt
- Where all are guilty, no one is; confessions of collective guilt are the best possible safeguard against the discovery of culprits, and… — Hannah Arendt
- We have almost succeeded in leveling all human activities to the common denominator of securing the necessities of life and providing for… — Hannah Arendt
- I keep my friends as misers do their treasure, because, of all the things granted us by wisdom, none is greater or… — Pietro Aretino
- We must all make peace so that we can all live in peace. — Jean-Bertrand Aristide
- The spirit of Ubuntu, that once led Haiti to emerge as the first independent black nation in 1804, helped Venezuela, Colombia and… — Jean-Bertrand Aristide
- As we all know, many people remain buried under tons of rubble and debris, waiting to be rescued. When we think of… — Jean-Bertrand Aristide
- Wise people, even though all laws were abolished, would still lead the same life. — Aristophanes
- A friend to all is a friend to none. — Aristotle