Quote

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

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
Start
Another
Extended
Someone
Stick
Would
Thanks
Think
Sticks
Thinking
Career
Life
Asked
Careers

More quotes by Ian Mcewan

Image
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
Image
You can tell a lot from a person's nails. When a life starts to unravel, they're among the first to go.
Ian Mcewan
Image
Nothing that can be, can come between me and the full prospect of my hopes.
Ian Mcewan
Image
Especially difficult when the first and best unconscious move of a dedicated liar is to persuade himself he's sincere. And once he's sincere, all deception vanishes.
Ian Mcewan
Image
The moment you lose curiosity in the world, you might as well be dead.
Ian Mcewan
Image
You can spin stories out of the ways people understand and misunderstand each other.
Ian Mcewan
Image
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.
Ian Mcewan
Image
Find you, love you, marry you, and live without shame.
Ian Mcewan
Image
I think the novel, its business is the investigation of human nature.
Ian Mcewan
Image
I like to think that it isn't weakness or evasion, but a final act of kindness, a stand against oblivion and despair.
Ian Mcewan
Image
That love which does not build a foundation on good sense is doomed.
Ian Mcewan
Image
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.
Ian Mcewan
Image
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
Image
For the professors in the academy, for the humanities generally, misery is more amenable to analysis: happiness is a harder nut to crack.
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
And feeling clever, I've always thought, is just a sigh away from being cheerful.
Ian Mcewan
Image
Let the guilty bury the innocent, and let no one change the evidence
Ian Mcewan
Image
But what really happened? The answer is simple: the lovers survive and flourish.
Ian Mcewan
Image
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
Image
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