Ian Mcewan Quotes - Page 9

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• It was thought, perception, sensations that interested her, the conscious mind as a river through time, and how to represent its onward roll, as well as all the tributaries that would swell it, and the obstacles that would divert it. If only she could reproduce the clear light of a summer's morning.

  Ian Mcewan

  Summer, Morning, Light

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• In a language as idiomatically stressed as English, opportunities for misreadings are bound to arise. By a mere backward movement of stress, a verb can become a noun, an act a thing. To refuse, to insist on saying no to what you believe is wrong, becomes at a stroke refuse, an insurmountable pile of garbage.

  Ian Mcewan

  Stress, Believe, Opportunity

  Ian McEwan (1999). “Amsterdam”

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• Above all, she wanted to look as though she had not given the matter a moment's thought, and that would take time.

  Ian Mcewan

  Looks, Matter, Moments

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• Briony began to understand the chasm that lay between an idea and its execution.

  Ian Mcewan

  Ideas, Execution, Chasms

  "Atonement". Book by Ian McEwan, 2001.

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• Had it taken her this long to discover that she lacked some simple mental trick that everyone else had, a mechanism so ordinary that no one ever mentioned it, an immediate sensual connection to people and events, and to her own needs and desires? All these years she had lived in isolation within herself and, strangely, from herself, never wanting or daring to look back.

  Ian Mcewan

  Taken, Simple, Years

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• My biggest fear, I think falling from a great height. If I want to keep myself awake at night I imagine I'm on the top of the North or South Tower in 9/11, wondering whether I'm going to be burnt to death or I'm going to jump. And I think I would burn to death. And yet I'm impressed by the fact that hundreds didn't.

  Ian Mcewan

  Fall, Night, Thinking

  Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

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• When people ask, "Is there any advice you'd give a young writer?," I say write short stories. They afford lots of failure. Pastiche is a great way to start.

  Ian Mcewan

  Writing, People, Giving

  Ian McEwan, Ryan Roberts (2010). “Conversations with Ian McEwan”, Univ Pr of Mississippi

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• I'm not against religion in the sense that I feel I can't tolerate it, but I think written into the rubric of religion is the certainty of its own truth. And since there are 6,000 religions currently on the face of the earth, they can't all be right. And only the secular spirit can guarantee those freedoms and it's the secular spirit that they contest.

  Ian Mcewan

  Thinking, Earth, Rubrics

  Interview with Zadie Smith, www.believermag.com. August 2005.

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• When people have supernatural beliefs I think they should be respected but there is no reason why they need to impose them on others.

  Ian Mcewan

  Thinking, People, Reason Why

  Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

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• Dying in unfamiliar surroundings miles away from home, it cannot possibly be good. There is a great sadness about that I think.

  Ian Mcewan

  Sadness, Home, Thinking

  Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

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• None of us really either know the circumstances of our death or are likely to exert as much control over it as we would like to, but we can certainly have a little more say in it if we are terminally ill than we have at the moment. That's the element of dignity, but sure, life is very hard to organise even when you are fit and healthy.

  Ian Mcewan

  Healthy, Elements, Littles

  Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

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• I couldn't think about novels at all. It seemed the only writing that was appropriate to that horrendous event was journalism, reportage. And, in fact, I think the profession rose quite honorably to the task. Novelists require a slower turnover, I mean, in time.

  Ian Mcewan

  Writing, Mean, Thinking

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