He wanted a father, and for the same reason, he wanted to be a father.
Ian McEwan Atonement
(0 Reviews)

The quote reflects a deep yearning for connection and paternal relationships. The character's desire for a father signifies an emotional void and the basic human need for guidance and support, which many people experience in their lives. This longing can shape one's identity and influence personal choices, driving the need for familial bonds.

Simultaneously, the wish to be a father suggests a desire to create meaningful relationships and to nurture the next generation. It highlights the cycle of longing and fulfillment in human relationships, showcasing how the desire for connection can lead one to seek out the role of a caregiver and protector in their own family. This dynamic is central to the themes of Atonement, illustrating both vulnerability and the hope for reconciliation.

Categories
men
Book
Atonement
Author
Ian McEwan
Votes
0
Page views
25
Update
February 22, 2025
Report
Report a Problem

Rate the Quote

Add Comment & Review

User Reviews

Based on 0 reviews
5 Star
0
4 Star
0
3 Star
0
2 Star
0
1 Star
0
Add Comment & Review
We'll never share your email with anyone else.
More »

Other quotes in Atonement

This unreal feeling was heightened when, after half an hour, she reached another High Street, more or less the same as the one she had left behind. That was all London was beyond its center, an agglomeration of dull little towns. She made a resolution never to live in any of them.
Ian McEwan Atonement
This unreal feeling was heightened when, after half an hour, she reached another High Street, more or less the same as the one she had left behind. That was all London was beyond its center, an agglomeration of dull little towns. She made a resolution never to live in any of them.
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.
Ian McEwan Atonement
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.
She was weary of being outdoors, but she was not ready to go in. Was that really all there was in life, indoors or out? Wasn't there somewhere else for people to go?
Ian McEwan Atonement
She was weary of being outdoors, but she was not ready to go in. Was that really all there was in life, indoors or out? Wasn't there somewhere else for people to go?
When the wounded were screaming, you dreamed of sharing a little house somewhere, of an ordinary life, of a family line, connection. All around him, men were walking silently with their thoughts, reforming their lives, making resolutions. If I ever get out of this lot... They could never be counted, the dreamed-up children, mentally conceived on the walk into Dunkirk, and later made flesh.
Ian McEwan Atonement
When the wounded were screaming, you dreamed of sharing a little house somewhere, of an ordinary life, of a family line, connection. All around him, men were walking silently with their thoughts, reforming their lives, making resolutions. If I ever get out of this lot... They could never be counted, the dreamed-up children, mentally conceived on the walk into Dunkirk, and later made flesh.
Everything that impeded him had to be outweighed, even if only by a fraction, by all that drove him on.
Ian McEwan Atonement
Everything that impeded him had to be outweighed, even if only by a fraction, by all that drove him on.
She left the cafe, and as she walked along the Common she felt the distance widen between her and another self, no less real, who was walking back toward the hospital. Perhaps the Briony who was walking in the direction of Balham was the imagined or ghostly persona. This unreal feeling was heightened when, after half an hour, she reached another High Street, more or less the same as the one she had left behind. That was all London was beyond its center, an agglomeration of dull little towns. She made a resolution never to live in any of them.
Ian McEwan Atonement
She left the cafe, and as she walked along the Common she felt the distance widen between her and another self, no less real, who was walking back toward the hospital. Perhaps the Briony who was walking in the direction of Balham was the imagined or ghostly persona. This unreal feeling was heightened when, after half an hour, she reached another High Street, more or less the same as the one she had left behind. That was all London was beyond its center, an agglomeration of dull little towns. She made a resolution never to live in any of them.
More »

Other quotes in men

They came and they went; they ached and pained. They laughed privately and cried to themselves as if heeding a way - off silent call. They were forever childish, sweet and convulsive. They heard sound the way dog heard sound. They were like the moon - they changed every eight days.
Robert Olmstead Coal Black Horse
They came and they went; they ached and pained. They laughed privately and cried to themselves as if heeding a way - off silent call. They were forever childish, sweet and convulsive. They heard sound the way dog heard sound. They were like the moon - they changed every eight days.
Behind every successful woman, there's a big prick.
James Patterson Season of the Machete
Behind every successful woman, there's a big prick.
Still, who could say what men ever were looking for? They looked for what they found; they knew what pleased them only when they saw it.
Henry James The Portrait of a Lady
Still, who could say what men ever were looking for? They looked for what they found; they knew what pleased them only when they saw it.
He reads much;He is a great observer and he looksQuite through the deeds of men: he loves no plays,As thou dost, Antony; he hears no music;Seldom he smiles, and smiles in such a sortAs if he mock'd himself and scorn'd his spiritThat could be moved to smile at any thing.Such men as he be never at heart's easeWhiles they behold a greater than themselves,And therefore are they very dangerous.
William Shakespeare Julius Caesar
He reads much;He is a great observer and he looksQuite through the deeds of men: he loves no plays,As thou dost, Antony; he hears no music;Seldom he smiles, and smiles in such a sortAs if he mock'd himself and scorn'd his spiritThat could be moved to smile at any thing.Such men as he be never at heart's easeWhiles they behold a greater than themselves,And therefore are they very dangerous.
In the meantime: {1} be direct; {2} remember that, being smarter than men, women respond to courtesy and kindness; {3} if you want to know what kind of a wife someone will make, observe her around her father and mother; {4} as to who gets out of the elevator first, I just can't help you.
David Mamet Some Freaks
In the meantime: {1} be direct; {2} remember that, being smarter than men, women respond to courtesy and kindness; {3} if you want to know what kind of a wife someone will make, observe her around her father and mother; {4} as to who gets out of the elevator first, I just can't help you.
You learn nothing about men by snubbing them and crushing their pride. You must ask them what it is they can do in this world, that they alone can do.
Hilary Mantel Wolf Hall
You learn nothing about men by snubbing them and crushing their pride. You must ask them what it is they can do in this world, that they alone can do.
More »

Popular quotes

The Red Lion was a four-ale bar with a handful of lowbrowed sons of toil who looked as though they might be related to one another in ways frowned on by the Old Testament. Sebastian Faulks
Taffy. He thinks about taffy. He thinks it would take his teeth out now, but he would eat it anyhow, if it meant eating it with her. Mitch Albom
All our human endeavours are like that, she reflected, and it is only because we are too ignorant to realize it, or are too forgetful to remember it, that we have the confidence to build something that is meant to last. Alexander McCall Smith
The value of money is subjective, depending on age. At the age of one, one multiplies the actual sum by 145,000, making one pound seem like 145,000 pounds to a one-year-old. At seven – Bertie's age – the multiplier is 24, so that five pounds seems like 120 pounds. At the age of twenty four, five pounds is five pounds; at forty five it is divided by 5, so that it seems like one pound and one pound seems like twenty pence. {All figures courtesy of Scottish Government Advice Leaflet: Handling your Money.} Alexander McCall Smith
In fact, none of us knows how he ever managed to get his LLB in the first place. Maybe they're putting law degrees in cornflakes boxes these days. Alexander McCall Smith
Look, if you say that science will eventually prove there is no God, on that I must differ. No matter how small they take it back, to a tadpole, to an atom, there is always something they can't explain, something that created it all at the end of the search. And no matter how far they try to go the other way – to extend life, play around with the genes, clone this, clone that, live to one hundred and fifty – at some point, life is over. And then what happens? When the life comes to an end? I shrugged. You see? He leaned back. He smiled. When you come to the end, that's where God begins. Mitch Albom
Small towns are like metronomes; with the slightest flick, the beat changes. Mitch Albom
You say you should have died instead of me. But during my time on earth, people died instead of me, too. It happens every day. When lightning strikes a minute after you are gone, or an airplane crashes that you might have been on. When your colleague falls ill and you do not. We think such things are random. But there is a balance to it all. One withers, another grows. Birth and death are part of a whole. Mitch Albom
we get so many lives between birth and death. A life to be a child. A life to come of age. A life to wander, to settle, to fall in love, to parent, to test our promise, to realize our mortality-and, in some lucky cases, to do something after that realization. Mitch Albom
But an ink brush, she thinks, is a skeleton key for a prisoner's mind. David Mitchell
All Categories »

Categories

love
inspirational
history
soul