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 More Quotes by Ian Mcewan More Quotes From Ian Mcewan was it possible that i was, in the modern term, in denial? Ian Mcewan denial modern term He would work through the night and sleep until lunch. There wasn't really much else to do. Make something, and die. Ian Mcewan lunch sleep night ...beauty, she had discovered occupied a narrow band. Ugliness, on the hand, had infinite variation. Ian Mcewan variation band hands No emergency was ever dealt with effectively by democratic process. Ian Mcewan emergencies democratic process 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. Ian Mcewan desert saws ends He knew these last lines by heart and mouthed them now in the darkness. My reason for life. Not living, but life. That was the touch. And she was his reason for life, and why he must survive. Ian Mcewan lines darkness heart No one knew about the squirrel’s skull beneath Briony bed, but no one wanted to know. Ian Mcewan squirrels skulls bed 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 to look forward to. But when I think small, closer in - you know, a girl I've just met, or this song we're going to do with Chas, or snowboarding next month, then it looks great. So this is going to be my motto - think small. Ian Mcewan girl song thinking He had never before felt so self-consciously young, nor experienced such appetite, such impatience for the story to begin. Ian Mcewan impatience self stories I watched our friends' wary, intelligent faces droop at our tale. Their shock was a mere shadow of our own, resembling more the goodwilled imitation of that emotion, and for this reason it was a temptation to exaggerate, to throw a rope of superlatives across the abyss that divided experience from its representation by anecdote. Ian Mcewan shadow intelligent temptation 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. She was weary of being outdoors, but she was not ready to go in. Was that really all there was in life, indoors or out? Wasn't there somewhere else for people to go? Ian Mcewan somewhere-else sky people It was always the view of my parents...that hot weather encouraged loose morals among young people. Ian Mcewan views weather people Writers are said to have superstitions and little rituals. Readers have them too. Ian Mcewan superstitions said littles Now, I'm an atheist. I really don't believe for a moment that our moral sense comes from a god. Ian Mcewan moral atheist believe It was not generally realized that what children mostly wanted was to be left alone. Ian Mcewan left-alone wanted children No one knows anything, really. It's all rented, or borrowed. Ian Mcewan borrowed knows 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 of a mate, that no one and no amount of talking can untangle it if it turns out unhappily. Ian Mcewan work-out choices talking 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 wounded were screaming, you dreamed of sharing a little house somewhere, of an ordinary life, a family line, connection. Ian Mcewan house ordinary children The anticipation and dread he felt at seeing her was also a kind of sensual pleasure, and surrounding it, like an embrace, was a general elation--it might hurt, it was horribly inconvenient, no good might come of it, but he had found out for himself what it was to be in love, and it thrilled him. Ian Mcewan elation sensual hurt 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 change or die. It is the future they are innocent of. Fifty years on we look at them with the godly knowledge of how they turne dout after all - who they married, the date of their death - with no thought for who will one day be holding photographs of us. Ian Mcewan godly photography years
