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I actually find novels that are determined to be funny at every turn quite oppressive.

Ian Mcewan

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Ian Mcewan
Age: 76
Born: 1948
Born: June 21
Author
Film Producer
Novelist
Playwright
Screenwriter
Writer
Belfast
Ireland
Turns
Actually
Funny
Oppressive
Find
Novels
Every
Determined
Novel
Turn
Quite

More quotes by Ian Mcewan

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The end of secrecy would be the end of the novel - especially the English novel. The English novel requires social secrecy, personal secrecy.
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I'm sorry to say that far worse things have happened and the literature of the Holocaust is a witness to the capacity of the novel as a form.
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All she had needed was the certainty of his love, and his reassurance that there was no hurry when a lifetime lay ahead of them.
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Find you, love you, marry you, and live without shame.
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If life was a dream, then dying must be the moment when you woke up. It was so simple it must be true. You died, the dream was over, you woke up. That's what people meant when they talked about going to heaven. It was like waking up.
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Dearest Cecilia, You’d be forgiven for thinking me mad, the way I acted this afternoon. The truth is I feel rather light headed and foolish in your presence, Cee, and I don’t think I can blame the heat.
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The cost of oblivious daydreaming was always this moment of return, the realignment with what had been before and now seemed a little worse.
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But to do its noticing and judging, poetry balances itself on the pinprick of the moment. Slowing down, stopping yourself completely, to read and understand a poem is like trying to acquire an old-fashioned skill.
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If I could write the perfect novella I would die happy.
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It was not generally realized that what children mostly wanted was to be left alone.
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Especially difficult when the first and best unconscious move of a dedicated liar is to persuade himself he's sincere. And once he's sincere, all deception vanishes.
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The trouble with being a daydreamer who doesn’t say much is that the teachers at school, especially those who don’t know you very well, are likely to think you’re rather stupid. Or, if not stupid, then dull. No one can see the amazing things that are going on in your head.
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Rebecca Goldstein is a rare find among contemporary novelists: she has intellectual muscle as well as a tender emotional reach.
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The anticipation and dread he felt at seeing her was also a kind of sensual pleasure, and surrounding it, like an embrace, was a general elation--it might hurt, it was horribly inconvenient, no good might come of it, but he had found out for himself what it was to be in love, and it thrilled him.
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When they kissed she immediately felt his tongue, tensed and strong, pushing past her teeth, like some bully shouldering his way into a room. Entering her.
Ian Mcewan
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All this happiness on display is suspect... If they think - and they could be right - that continued torture and summary executions, ethnic cleansing and occasional genocide are preferable to an invasion, they should be sombre in their view.
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He was looking at her with amused suspicion. There was something between them, and even she had to acknowledge that a tame remark about the weather sounded perverse.
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And feeling clever, I've always thought, is just a sigh away from being cheerful.
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I believe the novella is the perfect form of prose fiction.
Ian Mcewan
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I would rather be physically disabled obviously than mentally. I would rather be paraplegic than nuts. And it is a terrifying prospect and actually the longer we live the more likely it is that that's how we will go and that's a very painful thing to contemplate.
Ian Mcewan