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I wrote a whole novel before The Beach. Unpublishable. Junk. But, for some reason I stuck at novels and wrote a second. Still not sure why I didn't give up. Stubborn, maybe.

Alex Garland

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Alex Garland
Age: 54
Born: 1970
Born: May 26
Film Director
Film Producer
Novelist
Screenwriter
Writer
London
England
Alexander Medawar Garland
Giving
Maybe
Junk
Sure
Stubborn
Didn
Novels
Stills
Beach
Give
Stuck
Still
Wrote
Reason
Second
Whole
Novel

More quotes by Alex Garland

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The truth is, I hadn't grown up really wanting to be a writer. The whole thing was a weird aberration in some ways, and I didn't feel personally connected to the level of success I had with it - the success of sorts, I guess.
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Tourists went on holidays while travellers did something else. They travelled.
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I've never been to Comic-Con, but I'm certainly aware from this side of the Atlantic that it's a very important part of film marketing now, even when the films are not directly linked to a comic.
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The key relationship for writers in film is producers, because those are the first two people involved and the ones who work on it intensely in a private way without the big machinery of film.
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I knew my affection for the Philippines was equally as telling: a democracy on paper, apparently well ordered, regularly subverted by irrational chaos. A place where I'd felt instantly at home.
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If you look at the whole life of the planet, we - you know, Man - has only been around for a few blinks of an eye. So if the infection wipes us all out, that is a return to normality.
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I do all this alone, everything I achieve, I achieve alone, because it's my head I'm locked into, and I share this space with nobody but myself.
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I think everything I write is from an atheist perspective. I mean, it's partly from an atheist perspective because I'm an atheist, and I'm just not really interested in religious-based questions.
Alex Garland
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By the time the plane was airborne I'd forgotten England even existed.
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There's this saying: in an all-blue world, colour doesn't exist... If something seems strange, you question it but if the outside world is too distant to use as a comparison then nothing seems strange.
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The first I heard of the beach was in Bangkok, on the Ko Sanh Road.
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I did keep a travel diary once and it was a big mistake. All I remember of that trip is what I bothered to write down.
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Escape through travel works. Almost from the moment I boarded my flight, life in England became meaningless. Seat-belt signs lit up, problems switched off. Broken armrests took precedence over broken hearts. By the time the plane was airborne I'd forgotten England even existed.
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If I'd learnt one thing from travelling, it was that the way to get things done was to go ahead and do them. Don't talk about going to Borneo. Book a ticket, get a visa, pack a bag, and it just happens.
Alex Garland
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Uh... what can I say? Made money. Given a launch pad for a working life. Set a precedent I had no interest in following. Created expectations that I was not cut-out to match. Disappointed virtually all of my readers subsequently. But I like what I've done, and I stand by it all.
Alex Garland
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I carry a lot of scars. I like the way that sounds. I carry a LOT of scars.
Alex Garland
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Every dream that anyone ever has is theirs alone and they never manage to share it. And they never manage to remember it either. Not truly or accurately. Not as it was. Our memories and our vocabularies aren't up to the job.
Alex Garland
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I can kid people, including myself, into believing that something on the page will work. But when you film it, you just think, Oh ....
Alex Garland
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As for me... I'm fine. I have bad dreams, but I never saw Mister Duck again. I play video games. I smoke a little dope. I got my thousand-yard stare. I carry a lot of scares. I like the way that sounds. I carry a lot of scares.
Alex Garland
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There are one hundred glow-stars on my bedroom ceiling. (...) Glow-stars are strange. They make the ceiling disappear.
Alex Garland