Inspirational Quotes by Ian McEwan — Words of Wisdom for Daily Success

“For children, childhood is timeless. It is always the present. Everything is in the present tense. Of course, they have memories. Of course, time shifts a little for them and Christmas comes round in the end. But they don’t feel it. Today is what they feel, and when they say ‘When I grow up,’ there is always an edge of disbelief—how could they ever be other than what they are?”

“Half aware of him, Rosalind shifts position, fidgiting with a feeble turn of her shoulders so that her back is snug against his chest. She slides her foot along his shin and rests the arch of he foot on his toes. Aroused furthe, he feels his erection trapped against the small of her back and reaches down to free himself. Her breathing resumes its steady rhythm. Henry lies still, waiting for sleep. By contemporary standards, by any standards, it's perverse that he's never tired of making love to Rosalind, never been seriously tempted by the opportunities that has drifted his way through the generous logic of medical hierarchy. When he thinks of sex, he thinks of her. These eyes, these breasts, this tongue, this welcome. Who else could love him so knowingly, with such warmth and teasing humour, or accumulate so rich a past with him? In one lifetime it wouldn't be possible to find another woman with whom he can learn to be so free, whom he can please with such abandon and expertise. By some accident of character, it's familiarity that excites him more than sexual novelty. He suspects that there's something numbed or deficient or timid in himself. Plenty of male friends sidle into adventures with younger women; now and then a solid marriage explodes in a firefight of recrimination. Perowne watches on with unease, fearing he lacks an element of the musculine life force, and a bold and healthy appetite for experience. Where's his curiosity? What's wrong with him? But there is nothing he can do about himself. He meets the occasional questioning glance of an attractive woman with a bland and level smile. This fidelity might look like virtue of doggedness, but it's neither of these because he exercise no real choice. This is what he was to have: possession, belonging, repetition.”

“There's a taste in the air, sweet and vaguely antiseptic, that reminds him of his teenage years in these streets, and of a general state of longing, a hunger for life to begin that from this distance seems like happiness.”

“so I talked about the colonisation of Mars. Apparently it might be possible to plant simple life forms like lichen, and then, later, hardy trees, and over the course of thousands of years an oxygen-based atmosphere could develop. The temperature would rise, and in time it could be a beautiful place. Clarissa stared through the windscreen and the road rolling under our feet and, to the left and right, the thickening fields and the cow parsley just out along the hedgerows. 'What's the point? It's beautiful here and we're still unhappy.”

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

“He would work through the night and sleep until lunch. There wasn't really much else to do. Make something, and die.”

“If life was a dream, then dying must be the moment when you woke up. It was so simple it must be true. You died, the dream was over, you woke up. That's what people meant when they talked about going to heaven. It was like waking up.”

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

“Dearest Cecilia, the story can resume. The one I had been planning on that evening walk. I can become again the man who once crossed the surrey park at dusk, in my best suit, swaggering on the promise of life. The man who, with the clarity of passion, made love to you in the library. The story can resume. I will return. Find you, love you, marry you and live without shame.”

“We go on our hands and knees and crawl our way towards the truth”

“When love dies and marriage lies in ruins, the first casualty is honest memory, decent, impartial recall of the past. Too inconvenient, too damning of the present. It's the spectre of old happiness at the feast of failure and desolation. So, against that headwind of forgetfulness I want to place my little candle of truth and see how far it throws its light.”

“Perhaps I'd been a slow developer, but I was well into my forties before I realized that you don't have to comply with a request just because it's reasonable or reasonably put. Age is the great dis-obliger. You can be yourself and say no.”