Quote

Briony began to understand the chasm that lay between an idea and its execution.

Ian Mcewan

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Ian Mcewan
Age: 76
Born: 1948
Born: June 21
Author
Film Producer
Novelist
Playwright
Screenwriter
Writer
Belfast
Ireland
Ideas
Chasm
Chasms
Execution
Lays
Began
Idea
Understand

More quotes by Ian Mcewan

Image
The luxury of being half-asleep, exploring the fringes of psychosis in safety.
Ian Mcewan
Image
I wouldn't mind being the lead guitarist in an incredibly successful rock band. However, I don't play the guitar.
Ian Mcewan
Image
None of us really either know the circumstances of our death or are likely to exert as much control over it as we would like to, but we can certainly have a little more say in it if we are terminally ill than we have at the moment. That's the element of dignity, but sure, life is very hard to organise even when you are fit and healthy.
Ian Mcewan
Image
Narrative tension is primarily about withholding information.
Ian Mcewan
Image
Most of humanity gets by without reading novels or poetry, and no one would deny the richness of their thoughts.
Ian Mcewan
Image
Above all, she wanted to look as though she had not given the matter a moment's thought, and that would take time.
Ian Mcewan
Image
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.
Ian Mcewan
Image
You can spin stories out of the ways people understand and misunderstand each other.
Ian Mcewan
Image
Dying in unfamiliar surroundings miles away from home, it cannot possibly be good. There is a great sadness about that I think.
Ian Mcewan
Image
I often don't read reviews.
Ian Mcewan
Image
If I could write the perfect novella I would die happy.
Ian Mcewan
Image
But what really happened? The answer is simple: the lovers survive and flourish.
Ian Mcewan
Image
Finally, you had to measure yourself by other people - there really was nothing else. every now and then, quite unintentionally, someone taught you something about yourself.
Ian Mcewan
Image
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.
Ian Mcewan
Image
Screenwriting is an opportunity to fly first class, be treated like a celebrity, sit around the pool and be betrayed.
Ian Mcewan
Image
A person is, among all else, a material thing, easily torn and not easily mended.
Ian Mcewan
Image
When anything can happen, everything matters.
Ian Mcewan
Image
I believe the novella is the perfect form of prose fiction.
Ian Mcewan
Image
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.
Ian Mcewan
Image
I was the basest of readers. All I wanted was my own world, and myself in it, given back to me in artful shapes and accessible form.
Ian Mcewan