More quotes by Ian McEwan, Atonement

"The cost of oblivious daydreaming was always this moment of return, the realignment with what had been before and now seemed a little worse."
"The anticipation and dread he felt at seeing her was also a kind of sensual pleasure, and surrounding it, like an embrace, was a general elation--it might hurt, it was horribly inconvenient, no good might come of it, but he had found out for himself what it was to be in love, and it thrilled him."
"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."
"At that moment, the urge to be writing was stronger than any notion she had of what she might write."
"At that moment, the urge to be writing was stronger than any notion she had of what she might write."