But soon I loved her completely and wished to possess her, own her, absorb her, eat her. I wanted her in my arms and in my bed, I longed she would open her legs to me

— Ian McEwan

But this inglorious revolution wasn't for me. I didn't want a sex shop in every town.

— Ian McEwan

But when I was an energetic self-important 10-year-old and found myself in a roomful of grownups, I felt guilty, and thought it only polite to conceal the fun I was having elsewhere. When an aged figure addressed me – they were all aged – I worried that what showed in my face was pity.

— Ian McEwan

...children are at heart selfish, and reasonably so, for they are programmed for survival.

— Ian McEwan

Clive was losing sensation in his feet, and as he stamped them the rhythm gave him back the ten note falling figure, retardant, a cor angles, and rising softly against it, contrapuntally, cellos in mirror image. Her face in it. The end.

— 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

Either I've always spoken to her from the heart in times like this, or I never have, and I don't know what it means.

— Ian McEwan

Especially difficult when the first and best unconscious move of a dedicated liar is to persuade himself he's sincere. And once he's sincere, all deception vanishes.

— Ian McEwan

Everyone knew as much as they needed to know to be happy.

— Ian McEwan

Every secret of the body was rendered up--bone risen through flesh, sacrilegious glimpses of an intestine or an optic nerve. From this new and intimate perspective, [Briny] learned a simple, obvious thing she had always known, and everyone knew: that a person is, among all else, a material thing, easily torn, not easily mended.

— Ian McEwan