Quote

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

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
Life
Happen
Interest
Sweep
Strong
Novelist
Sense
Directions
Happens
Novelists
Different
Suddenly
Always
Certainly
Things
Terrible

More quotes by Ian Mcewan

Image
Could it ever be explained, how matter becomes conscious?
Ian Mcewan
Image
And though you think the world is at your feet, it can rise up and tread on you.
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
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
But what really happened? The answer is simple: the lovers survive and flourish.
Ian Mcewan
Image
At that moment, the urge to be writing was stronger than any notion she had of what she might write.
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
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
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
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.
Ian Mcewan
Image
Writing a novel resembles a journey with only the sketchiest of maps.
Ian Mcewan
Image
These memories sustained him, but not so easily. Too often they reminded him of where he was when he last summoned them. They lay on the far side of a great divide in time, as significant as B.C. and A.D. Before prison, before the war, before the sight of a corpse became a banality.
Ian Mcewan
Image
I think the novel, its business is the investigation of human nature.
Ian Mcewan
Image
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
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
When people have supernatural beliefs I think they should be respected but there is no reason why they need to impose them on others.
Ian Mcewan
Image
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.
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
Rebecca Goldstein is a rare find among contemporary novelists: she has intellectual muscle as well as a tender emotional reach.
Ian Mcewan
Image
You can spin stories out of the ways people understand and misunderstand each other.
Ian Mcewan