Quote

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.

Ian Mcewan

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Ian Mcewan
Age: 76
Born: 1948
Born: June 21
Author
Film Producer
Novelist
Playwright
Screenwriter
Writer
Belfast
Ireland
Like
Completely
Noticing
Balance
Fashioned
Poetry
Stopping
Read
Skill
Moment
Poem
Understand
Acquire
Moments
Judging
Balances
Trying
Skills
Slowing

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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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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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And though you think the world is at your feet, it can rise up and tread on you.
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Most of humanity gets by without reading novels or poetry, and no one would deny the richness of their thoughts.
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She loved him, though not at this particular moment.
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I believe the novella is the perfect form of prose fiction.
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In that shrinking moment he discovered that he had never hated anyone until now. It was a feeling as pure as love, but dispassionate and icily rational.
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I'm quite good at not writing.
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It's good to get your hands dirty a bit and to test how you see things at a given point. And it's very pleasing after writing something like 'Atonement' or 'On Chesil Beach,' which are historical, to get involved in some plausible re-enactment of the here and now.
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What reader wants to be told what attitude to strike?
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There are ways in which art can have a longer reach than politics.
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Let his name be cleared and everyone else adjust their thinking. He had put in time, now they must do the work. His business was simple. Find Cecilia and love her, marry her and live without shame.
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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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No one knew about the squirrel’s skull beneath Briony bed, but no one wanted to know.
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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.
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Screenwriting is an opportunity to fly first class, be treated like a celebrity, sit around the pool and be betrayed.
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Nothing that can be, can come between me and the full prospect of my hopes.
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The best way to tell people about climate change is through non-fiction. There's a vast literature of outstanding writing on the subject.
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At the back of my mind I had a sense of us sitting about waiting for some terrible event, and then I would remember that it had already happened.
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