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At that moment, the urge to be writing was stronger than any notion she had of what she might write.

Ian Mcewan

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Ian Mcewan
Age: 76
Born: 1948
Born: June 21
Author
Film Producer
Novelist
Playwright
Screenwriter
Writer
Belfast
Ireland
Might
Writing
Urge
Urges
Notion
Stronger
Moment
Write
Moments

More quotes by Ian Mcewan

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I like to think that it isn't weakness or evasion, but a final act of kindness, a stand against oblivion and despair.
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At the risk of sounding like Virginia Woolf, I could live on £700 a year.
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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.
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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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The best way to tell people about climate change is through non-fiction. There's a vast literature of outstanding writing on the subject.
Ian Mcewan
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It's the essence of a degenerating mind periodically, to lose all sense of continuous self, and therefore any regard for what others think of your lack of continuity.
Ian Mcewan
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I do have a very strong sense that most of the terrible things in life happen suddenly and unpredictably, and certainly can sweep you off in different directions, and that is always of interest to a novelist.
Ian Mcewan
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A person is, among all else, a material thing, easily torn and not easily mended.
Ian Mcewan
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Cecilia wondered, as she sometimes did when she met a man for the first time, if this was the one she was going to marry, and whether it was this particular moment she would remember for the rest of her life - with gratitude, or profound and particular regret.
Ian Mcewan
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I'm holding back, delaying the information. I'm lingering in the prior moment because it was a time when other outcomes were still possible.
Ian Mcewan
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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
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From this new and intimate perspective, she learned a simple, obvious thing she had always known, and everyone knew that a person is, among all else, a material thing, easily torn, not easily mended.
Ian Mcewan
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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.
Ian Mcewan
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These were everyday sounds magnified by darkness. And darkness was nothing - it was not a substance, it was not a presence, it was no more than an absence of light.
Ian Mcewan
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Narrative tension is primarily about withholding information.
Ian Mcewan
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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.
Ian Mcewan
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There was, in my view, an unwritten contract with the reader that the writer must honour. No single element of an imagined world or any of its characters should be allowed to dissolve on an authorial whim. The invented had to be as solid and as self-consistent as the actual. This was a contract founded on mutual trust.
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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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
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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.
Ian Mcewan