Above all, she wanted to look as though she had not given the matter a moment's thought, and that would take time.

— Ian McEwan

Adversity forced awareness on us, and it works, it bites us when we go too near the fire, when we love too hard. Those felt sensations are the beginning of the invention of the self. And if that works, why not feeling disgust for shit, fearing the cliff edge and strangers, remembering insults and favors, liking sex and food? God said, Let there be pain. And there was poetry. Eventually.

— Ian McEwan

All day we've witnessed each other's crimes. You killed no one today? But how many did you leave to die?

— Ian McEwan

And though you think the world is at your feet, it can rise up and tread on you.

— Ian McEwan

A story was a form of telepathy. By means of inking symbols onto a page, she was able to send thoughts and feelings from her mind to her reader's. It was a magical process, so commonplace that no one stopped to wonder at it.

— Ian McEwan

At best, he read popular science magazines like the Scientific American he had now, to keep himself up-to-date, in layman's terms, with physics generally. But even then his concentration was marred, for a lifetime's habit made him inconveniently watchful for his own name. He saw it as if in bold. It could leap out at him from an unread double page of small print, and sometimes he could sense it coming before the page turn.

— Ian McEwan

At that moment, the urge to be writing was stronger than any notion she had of what she might write.

— Ian McEwan

Becoming drunk is a journey that generally elates him in the early stages—he's good company, expansive, mischievous and fun, the famous old poet, almost as happy listening as talking. But once the destination is met, once established up there on that unfunny plateau, a fully qualified drunk, the nastier muses, the goblins of aggression, paranoia, self-pity take control. The expectation now is that an evening with John will go bad somehow, unless everyone around is prepared to toil at humoring and flattering and hours of frozen-faced listening. No one will be.

— Ian McEwan

Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves, Confucius said. Revenge stitches civilization.

— Ian McEwan

Both men accepted that the nature of the request, its intimacy and self-conscious reflection on their friendship, had created, for the moment, an uncomfortable emotional proximity which was best dealt with by their parting without another word.

— Ian McEwan