It wasn't torpor that kept her - she was often restless to the point of irritability. She simply liked to feel that she was prevented from leaving, that she was needed. Ian Mcewan More Quotes by Ian Mcewan More Quotes From Ian Mcewan What idiocy, to racing into this story and its labyrinths, sprinting away from our happiness among the fresh spring grasses by the oak. Ian Mcewan labyrinth racing spring These memories sustained him, but not so easily. Too often they reminded him of where he was when he last summoned them. They lay on the far side of a great divide in time, as significant as B.C. and A.D. Before prison, before the war, before the sight of a corpse became a banality. Ian Mcewan sight memories war This commonplace cycle of falling asleep and waking, in darkness, under private cover, with another creature, a pale soft tender mammal, putting faces together in a ritual of affection, briefly settled in the eternal necessities of warmth, comfort, safety, crossing limbs to draw nearer - a simple daily consolation, almost too obvious, easy to forget by daylight. Ian Mcewan safety simple fall He was looking at her with amused suspicion. There was something between them, and even she had to acknowledge that a tame remark about the weather sounded perverse. Ian Mcewan suspicion acknowledge weather He never believed in fate or providence, or the future being made by someone in the sky. Instead, at every instant, a trillion trillion possible futures; the pickiness of pure chance and physical laws seemed like freedom from the scheming of a gloomy god. Ian Mcewan fate law sky one could drown in irrelevance. Ian Mcewan irrelevance 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 lack of continuity. Ian Mcewan essence self thinking The luxury of being half-asleep, exploring the fringes of psychosis in safety. Ian Mcewan psychosis luxury safety I did not kill my father, but I sometimes felt I had helped him on his way. And but for the fact that it coincided with a landmark in my own physical growth, his death seemed insignificant compared to what followed. Ian Mcewan growth garden father She sleepwalked from moment to moment, and whole months slipped by without memory, without bearing the faintest imprint of her conscious will. Ian Mcewan months moments memories Rebecca Goldstein is a rare find among contemporary novelists: she has intellectual muscle as well as a tender emotional reach. Ian Mcewan novelists emotional intellectual 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 itself, how was that put across so it could be felt in all its lowering immediacy? Even harder was the threat, or the confusion of feeling contradictory things. Ian Mcewan sadness confusion writing By concentrating on what is good in people, by appealing to their idealism and their sense of justice, and by asking them to put their faith in the future, socialists put themselves at a severe disadvantage. Ian Mcewan asking justice people But what really happened? The answer is simple: the lovers survive and flourish. Ian Mcewan lovers simple answers Novels help us to resist the temptation to think of the past as deficient. Ian Mcewan temptation past thinking It troubles him to consider the powerful currents and fine-tuning that alter fate, the close and distant influences, the accidents of character and circumstance. Ian Mcewan fate powerful character This is the pain-pleasure of having newly adult children; they're innocent and ruthless in forgetting their sweet old dependence. Ian Mcewan pain sweet children I'm sorry to say that far worse things have happened and the literature of the Holocaust is a witness to the capacity of the novel as a form. Ian Mcewan holocaust literature sorry I'm delighted when people respond with passion and readily intensity to my work. Literature is not as the economist would put it a positional good; in other words, there is infinite space for good literature. Ian Mcewan passion literature people I think the Americans are dying to leave Iraq. I was against the war but longed for the fall of Saddam; the decision to go to war clearly was taken long before the matter reached the U.N., given its inevitability. I kept my fingers crossed for the emergence of democracy in Iraq even if that would mean victory for a man whose politics I have little sympathy with. Ian Mcewan taken war fall
