Ian McEwan citáty

„Opakem nihilismu je kreativita. Nálada vybízející ke změnám, hlad po individuální svobodě, jež se teď šíří Blízkým východem. To vše připomíná nové možnosti spíš, než hrozbu.“

„Sekulární mysl se zdá mnohem lépe připravená na vytváření rozumných úsudků.“

„A teď, když vstupoval do závěrečných fází svého aktivního života, začínal chápat, že pokud nedojde k nějaké nepředvídané souhře okolností, jeho život se nezmění. Byl oklamán. Odjakživa se domníval, že v jeho dospělosti jednou nastane čas jakéhosi stabilizovaného stavu, kdy se naučí využívat veškeré triky, jak řídit svůj život nebo jen jednoduše žít. Kdy vyřídí veškerou poštu a e-maily, všechny papíry bude mít v pořádku, knihy vyrovnané na policích podle abecedy, oblečení a boty v dobrém stavu v šatnících a v botníku, všechny věci na svých místech, kde je bude umět najít, Svou minulost včetně dopisů a fotografií roztříděnou v krabicích a šanonech, soukromý život usazený a poklidný, stejně jako bydlení a peníze. Za celé ty roky nikdy k žádnému podobnému urovnání nedošlo, stabilizovaného stavu nikdy nedosáhl, ale přesto nadále předpokládal, aniž by nad stavem věcí uvažoval, že je už na dosah chvíle, kdy po vynaloženém úsilí kýženého stavu dosáhne, že nastane okamžik, kdy jeho život bude přehledný a duše svobodná, a jeho dospělá existence bude moct náležitě začít. Ale nedlouho po narození Catriony, přibližně v době, kdy se seznámil s Darlene, se domníval, že situaci poprvé vidí v celé její nahotě: v den, kdy umře, bude mít na sobě ponožky, které nepůjdou do páru, v počítači bude mít hromadu nezodpovězených e-mailů a v brlohu, kterému říká domov, budou nadále košile s chybějícími manžetovými knoflíčky, selhávající světlo na chodbě, nezaplacené složenky, neuklizená půda, mrtvé mouchy, a kolem něho budou kamarádi čekající na odpověď a milenky, k nimž se nebude hlásit. Zapomnění, poslední slovo v uspořádání všech věcí, mu bude jedinou útěchou.“

“In my dreams I kiss your cunt, your sweet wet cunt. In my thoughts I make love to you all day long.”

“Wasn't writing a kind of soaring, an achievable form of flight, of fancy, of the imagination?”

“It is shaming sometimes, how the body will not, or cannot, lie about emotions.”

“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.”

“When it's gone, you'll know what a gift love was. You'll suffer like this. So go back and fight to keep it.”

“A person is, among all else, a material thing, easily torn and not easily mended.”

“It was always the view of my parents… that hot weather encouraged loose morals among young people.”

“It wasn't only wickedness and scheming that made people unhappy, it was confusion and misunderstanding; above all, it was the failure to grasp the simple truth that other people are as real as you.”

“The cost of oblivious daydreaming was always this moment of return, the realignment with what had been before and now seemed a little worse.”

“This is how the entire course of a life can be changed - by doing nothing.”

“… falling in love could be achieved in a single word—a glance.”

“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.”

“Find you, love you, marry you, and live without shame.”

“I've never had a moment's doubt. I love you. I believe in you completely. You are my dearest one. My reason for life. Cee”

“You can tell a lot from a person's nails. When a life starts to unravel, they're among the first to go.”

“She lay in the dark and knew everything.”

“All she had needed was the certainty of his love, and his reassurance that there was no hurry when a lifetime lay ahead of them.”

“It was not generally realized that what children mostly wanted was to be left alone.”

“No one knows anything, really. It's all rented, or borrowed.”

“come back, come back to me”

“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.”

“How guilt refined the methods of self-torture, threading the beads of detail into an eternal loop, a rosary to be fingered for a lifetime.”

“That love which does not build a foundation on good sense is doomed.”

“But whathappened? The answer is simple: the lovers survive and flourish.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Not everything people did could be in a correct, logical order, especially when they were alone.”

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

“From this new and intimate perspective, she 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.”