Despite his first, the study of English literature seemed in retrospect an absorbing parlor game, and reading books and having opinions about them, the desirable adjunct to a civilized existence. But it was not the core, whatever Dr. Leavis said in his lectures.
("Atonement")
More Quotes from Ian McEwan:
Was everyone else really as alive as she was?...If the answer was yes, then the world, the social world, was unbearably complicated, with two billion voices, and everyone's thoughts striving in equal importance and everyone's claim on life as intense, and everyone thinking they were unique, when no one was.Ian McEwan
This, as they used to say, was the side on which her bread was buttered.
Ian McEwan
In that shrinking moment he discovered that he had never hated anyone until now. It was a feeling as pure as love, but dispassionate and icily rational.
Ian McEwan
These were everyday sounds magnified by darkness. And darkness was nothing - it was not a substance, it was not a presence, it was no more than an absence of light.
Ian McEwan
But of course, it had all been her - by her and about her, and now she was back in the world, not one she could make, but the one that had made her, and she felt herself shrinking under the early evening sky
Ian McEwan
It was not generally realized that what children mostly wanted was to be left alone.
Ian McEwan
Readers Who Like This Quotation Also Like:
Based on Topics: Education Quotes, English QuotesBased on Keywords: leavis
It pains me physically to see a woman victimized, rendered pathetic, by fashion.
Yves Saint Laurent
Skeptical scrutiny is the means, in both science and religion, by which deep thoughts can be winnowed from deep nonsense.
Carl Sagan
I find it difficult to believe that words have no meaning in themselves, hard as I try. Habits of a lifetime are not lightly thrown aside.
Stuart Chase