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And feeling clever, I've always thought, is just a sigh away from being cheerful.

Ian Mcewan

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Ian Mcewan
Age: 76
Born: 1948
Born: June 21
Author
Film Producer
Novelist
Playwright
Screenwriter
Writer
Belfast
Ireland
Clever
Feeling
Feelings
Away
Thought
Always
Sigh
Cheerful

More quotes by Ian Mcewan

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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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He had never before felt so self-consciously young, nor experienced such appetite, such impatience for the story to begin.
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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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And though you think the world is at your feet, it can rise up and tread on you.
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I actually find novels that are determined to be funny at every turn quite oppressive.
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One important theme is the extent to which one can ever correct an error, especially outside any frame of religious forgiveness. All of us have done something we regret - how we manage to remove that from our conscience, or whether that's even possible, interested me.
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Now, I'm an atheist. I really don't believe for a moment that our moral sense comes from a god.
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He who hesitates is not only lost, but miles from the next exit.
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There are ways in which art can have a longer reach than politics.
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It wasn't only wickedness and scheming that made people unhappy, it was confusion and misunderstanding above all, it was the failure to grasp the simple truth that other people are as real as you.
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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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Let the guilty bury the innocent, and let no one change the evidence
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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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The world should take note: not everything is getting worse.
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Daylight seemed then to be the physical manifestation of common sense.
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I think the novel, its business is the investigation of human nature.
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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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You can tell a lot from a person's nails. When a life starts to unravel, they're among the first to go.
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Arguing with a dead man in a lavatory is a claustrophobic experience.
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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.
Ian Mcewan