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Who you get, and how it works out - there's so much luck involved, as well as the million branching consequences of your unconscious choice of mate, that no one and no amount of talking can untangle it if it turns out unhappily.

— Ian McEwan Enduring Love (1997)

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More quotes by Ian McEwan

Nations are never virtuous, though they might sometimes think they are.

Solar (2010)

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

On Chesil Beach (2007)

How can one understand the inner life of a character, real or fictional, without knowing the state of her finances?

Sweet Tooth (2012)

I did not kill my father, but I sometimes felt I had helped him on his way.

The Cement Garden (1978)

You want a picture of futility? It's a tunnel in the desert, from nowhere to nowhere, four hundred and fifty feet long.

The Innocent (1990)

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Ian McEwan (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.