Ian Mcewan
Ian Mcewan
Ian Russell McEwan CBE FRSA FRSLis an English novelist and screenwriter. In 2008, The Times featured him on their list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945"...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionScreenwriter
Date of Birth21 June 1948
dream cost littles
The cost of oblivious daydreaming was always this moment of return, the realignment with what had been before and now seemed a little worse.
religious art simple
Finally he spoke the three simple words that no amount of bad art or bad faith can every quite cheapen. She repeated them, with exactly the same slight emphasis on the second word, as though she were the one to say them first. He had no religious belief, but it was impossible not to think of an invisible presence or witness in the room, and that these words spoken aloud were like signatures on an unseen contract.
driven higher tough
This was a tough decision, but it was driven by our need for higher temperatures. This is not a cost-cutting measure.
bad bear computer denied entry states united
I now bear a kind of stigmata. I am in the computer as having been denied entry to the United States and that is really bad news. They can put things into that computer, but they never take them out.
writing mean thinking
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.
writing giving people
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.
imagination cruelty
I've always thought cruelty is a failure of imagination.
thinking guarantees earth
I'm not against religion in the sense that I feel I can't tolerate it, but I think written into the rubric of religion is the certainty of its own truth. And since there are 6,000 religions currently on the face of the earth, they can't all be right. And only the secular spirit can guarantee those freedoms and it's the secular spirit that they contest.
thinking people needs
When people have supernatural beliefs I think they should be respected but there is no reason why they need to impose them on others.
sadness home thinking
Dying in unfamiliar surroundings miles away from home, it cannot possibly be good. There is a great sadness about that I think.
farewell sleep doors
I read in announcements of deaths 'peacefully in his sleep' and I wonder how many of those are true. Maybe they are just conventional. I hope they are true whenever I read it of someone. [But] I would rather be awake. Peacefully awake, brim full of some calming drug that was seeing me out of the door, having said my farewells.
healthy elements littles
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.
nuts painful paraplegics
I would rather be physically disabled obviously than mentally. I would rather be paraplegic than nuts. And it is a terrifying prospect and actually the longer we live the more likely it is that that's how we will go and that's a very painful thing to contemplate.
fall night thinking
My biggest fear, I think falling from a great height. If I want to keep myself awake at night I imagine I'm on the top of the North or South Tower in 9/11, wondering whether I'm going to be burnt to death or I'm going to jump. And I think I would burn to death. And yet I'm impressed by the fact that hundreds didn't.