A person is, among all else, a material thing, easily torn and not easily mended. Ian Mcewan More Quotes by Ian Mcewan More Quotes From Ian Mcewan Most of humanity gets by without reading novels or poetry, and no one would deny the richness of their thoughts. Ian Mcewan denyreadinghumanity Love doesn't grow at a steady rate, but advances in surges, bolts, wild leaps, and this was one of those. Ian Mcewan rateleapgrows 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 formshapesworld Arguing with a dead man in a lavatory is a claustrophobic experience. Ian Mcewan dead-manarguingmen 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 playmenwatches There was, in my view, an unwritten contract with the reader that the writer must honour. No single element of an imagined world or any of its characters should be allowed to dissolve on an authorial whim. The invented had to be as solid and as self-consistent as the actual. This was a contract founded on mutual trust. Ian Mcewan selfviewscharacter Shall there be womanly times? Or shall we die? Ian Mcewan womanlydies At the back of my mind I had a sense of us sitting about waiting for some terrible event, and then I would remember that it had already happened. Ian Mcewan terrible-eventswaitingmind It marked the beginning and, of course, an end. At that moment a chapter, no, a whole stage of my closed. Had I known, and had there been a spare second or two, I might have allowed myself a little nostalgia. Ian Mcewan littlesmighttwo She loved him, though not at this particular moment. Ian Mcewan particularmomentslove I'm holding back, delaying the information. I'm lingering in the prior moment because it was a time when other outcomes were still possible. Ian Mcewan enduring-loveinformationoutcomes I like to think that each book I start is a completely new departure But I’ve learned that whatever you do, readers will have no difficulty assimilating it into what you’ve done before. Ian Mcewan donebookthinking I’ll wait for you. Come back. The words were not meaningless, but they didn’t touch him now. It was clear enough - one person waiting for another was like an arithmetical sum, and just as empty of emotion. Waiting. Simply one person doing nothing, over time, while another approached. Waiting was a heavy word. Ian Mcewan doing-nothingemotionwaiting I like to think that it isn't weakness or evasion, but a final act of kindness, a stand against oblivion and despair. Ian Mcewan despairkindnessthinking Four or five years - nothing at all. But no one over thirty could understand this peculiarly weighted and condensed time, from late teens to early twenties, a stretch of life that needed a name, from school leaver to salaried professional, with a university and affairs and death and choices in between. I had forgotten how recent my childhood was, how long and inescapable it once seemed. How grown up and how unchanged I was. Ian Mcewan namesyearsschool When anything can happen, everything matters. Ian Mcewan anything-can-happenmatterhappens 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. Ian Mcewan reassurancehis-lovelifetime However, withered, I still feel myself to be exactly the same person I've always been. Hard to explain that to the young. we may look truly reptilian, but we're not a separate tribe. Ian Mcewan tribesmaylooks That love which does not build a foundation on good sense is doomed. Ian Mcewan doomedfoundationdoe She wanted to leave, she wanted to lie alone face down on her bed and savor the vile piquancy of the moment, and go back down the lines of branching consequences to the point before the destruction began. She needed to contemplate with eyes closed the full richness of what she had lost, what she had given away, and to anticipate the new regime. Ian Mcewan eyefaceslying
