one could drown in irrelevance. Ian Mcewan More Quotes by Ian Mcewan More Quotes From Ian Mcewan Dearest Cecilia, You’d be forgiven for thinking me mad, the way I acted this afternoon. The truth is I feel rather light headed and foolish in your presence, Cee, and I don’t think I can blame the heat. Ian Mcewan madlightthinking was it possible that i was, in the modern term, in denial? Ian Mcewan denialmodernterm He would work through the night and sleep until lunch. There wasn't really much else to do. Make something, and die. Ian Mcewan lunchsleepnight ...beauty, she had discovered occupied a narrow band. Ugliness, on the hand, had infinite variation. Ian Mcewan variationbandhands No emergency was ever dealt with effectively by democratic process. Ian Mcewan emergenciesdemocraticprocess 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 desertsawsends 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 linesdarknessheart No one knew about the squirrel’s skull beneath Briony bed, but no one wanted to know. Ian Mcewan squirrelsskullsbed 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 girlsongthinking He had never before felt so self-consciously young, nor experienced such appetite, such impatience for the story to begin. Ian Mcewan impatienceselfstories 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 shadowintelligenttemptation 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-elseskypeople It was always the view of my parents...that hot weather encouraged loose morals among young people. Ian Mcewan viewsweatherpeople Writers are said to have superstitions and little rituals. Readers have them too. Ian Mcewan superstitionssaidlittles Now, I'm an atheist. I really don't believe for a moment that our moral sense comes from a god. Ian Mcewan moralatheistbelieve It was not generally realized that what children mostly wanted was to be left alone. Ian Mcewan left-alonewantedchildren No one knows anything, really. It's all rented, or borrowed. Ian Mcewan borrowedknows 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-outchoicestalking 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 houseordinarychildren 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 elationsensualhurt
