527 Quotes by Ian McEwan

It is quite impossible these days to assume anything about people's educational level from the way they talk or dress or from their taste in music. Safest to treat everyone you meet as a distinguished intellectual.

... her conviction that love that did not find its expression in a letter was not perfect.

She was one of those people who could not say if one note was lower or higher than another. This was no less a disability and misfortune than a clubfoot or a harelip...

He no longer cared much what others thought of him. There were few benefits in growing older, and this was one.

The nineteenth century was closer than most women thought.

...'the softest, sweetest part of the Cold War, the only truly interesting part, the war of ideas.

The revolutionary lone inventor was a fantasy of popular culture – and the Minister

Voleva fuggire, buttarsi da sola sul letto a faccia in giù e assaporare il dolore cocente di quel momento, e poi seguire con il pensiero il diramarsi di ogni possibile conseguenza fino al punto esatto che precedeva la devastazione. Aveva bisogno di contemplare a occhi chiusi la ricchezza di quello che aveva perso, di quello che aveva ceduto, e di prefigurarsi il nuovo stato delle cose.

He was discovering that being in love was not a steady state, but a matter of fresh surges or waves, and he was experiencing one now.