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If I could write the perfect novella I would die happy.

Ian Mcewan

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Ian Mcewan
Age: 76
Born: 1948
Born: June 21
Author
Film Producer
Novelist
Playwright
Screenwriter
Writer
Belfast
Ireland
Perfect
Write
Writing
Would
Novella
Dies
Happy

More quotes by Ian Mcewan

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When anything can happen, everything matters.
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I did not kill my father, but I sometimes felt I had helped him on his way. And but for the fact that it coincided with a landmark in my own physical growth, his death seemed insignificant compared to what followed.
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Politics is the enemy of the imagination.
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And though you think the world is at your feet, it can rise up and tread on you.
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Writing a novel resembles a journey with only the sketchiest of maps.
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Scientists do stand on the shoulders of giants, just as do writers. Conversely, in the arts we do make discoveries. We do refine our tools. So I am arguing with, or at least playing with, the idea that art never improves.
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You enter a state of controlled passivity, you relax your grip and accept that even if your declared intention is to justify the ways of God to man, you might end up interesting your readers rather more in Satan.
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The evasions of her little novel were exactly those of her life. Everything she did not wish to confront was also missing from her novella--and was necessary to it.
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She loved him, though not at this particular moment.
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Someone once asked me If your life could be extended to 150 and you could start another career, would you? And I said No, thanks, I think I'll stick at this.
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No one knew about the squirrel’s skull beneath Briony bed, but no one wanted to know.
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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.
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i'm going mad, i told myself. let me not be mad.
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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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It was always the view of my parents...that hot weather encouraged loose morals among young people.
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I read in announcements of deaths 'peacefully in his sleep' and I wonder how many of those are true. Maybe they are just conventional. I hope they are true whenever I read it of someone. [But] I would rather be awake. Peacefully awake, brim full of some calming drug that was seeing me out of the door, having said my farewells.
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I often don't read reviews.
Ian Mcewan
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It marked the beginning and, of course, an end. At that moment a chapter, no, a whole stage of my closed. Had I known, and had there been a spare second or two, I might have allowed myself a little nostalgia.
Ian Mcewan
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...the world she ran through loved her and would give her what she wanted and would let it happen.
Ian Mcewan
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Screenwriting is an opportunity to fly first class, be treated like a celebrity, sit around the pool and be betrayed.
Ian Mcewan