Ian Mcewan Quotes

I lost my moral compass and I have done terrible things that I very much regret.

I just hope everybody forgives me for whatever I did wrong. And hope they remember some of what I did right.

The beginning of atonement is the sense of its necessity.

Atheists have as much conscience, possibly more, than people with deep religious conviction, and they still have the same problem of how they reconcile themselves to a bad deed in the past. It's a little easier if you've got a god to forgive you.

Many times, the decisions we make affect and hurt your closest friends and family the most. I have a lot of regrets in that regard. But God has forgiven me, which I am very thankful for. It has enabled me to forgive myself and move forward one day at a time.

Guilt: punishing yourself before God doesn't.

If you did something in 1975 that you deeply regret and that you now can recognize as having been profoundly irresponsible, for example, the only way to be lifted out of deep regret and the pain over it is through atonement - through the kind of remorse that leads to genuine atonement, the making of amends, and forgiveness of self and others.

Remorse is impotence; it will sin again. Only repentance is strong - it can end everything.

I want to see these bad, bad, bad, bad men come to grips with their humanity.

My children forgave me at a time when I could barely forgive myself.

I am making amends and seeking forgiveness. My only hope is that some good can come out of my situation.

I have never thought that the circumstance of God's having forgiven me was any reason why I should forgive myself.

Sadly, we do a much better job of making people feel guilty than we do of delivering them from the guilt we create. We need to confess this and change our ways.

I think everybody wants to redeem themselves after they've done something that might be considered negative. I don't think anyone wants to go to the grave negative.

One lives with so many bad deeds on one's conscience and some good intentions in one's heart.

I did a lot of things that I regretted and I certainly paid for my mistakes. You have to go and ask for forgiveness and it wasn't until I really started doing good and doing right, by other people as well as myself, that I really started to feel that guilt go away. So I don't have a problem going to sleep at night.

To forgive oneself? No, that doesn't work: we have to be forgiven. But we can only believe this is possible if we ourselves can forgive.

Regret is not a proactive feeling. It is situated in disappointment, sorrow, even remorse. It merely wishes things were different without an act to cause a difference. However, repentance is different. Repentance is an admission of, hatred of, and turning away from sin before God.

Our sins are more easily remembered than our good deeds.

I think guilt is directional. You should get rid of it, but the way to get rid of it is not to get rid of the guilt feelings. It is to get rid of the wrong that you did that caused the guilt feelings.

Let's be very clear: Living 'unforgiven' is not the sole domain of blacks. It can be found in any successful person.

I know I may have done some bad things, but I'm not a bad person.

I've done a lot of bad things. Use your imagination.

In 2006, 2 years ago, I made a very serious mistake. A mistake that I am responsible for and no one else. In 2006, I told Elizabeth about the mistake, asked her for her forgiveness, asked God for his forgiveness.

I have made terrible mistakes that have hurt the people that I cared about the most, and I am terribly sorry. I am deeply ashamed of my terrible judgment and my actions.