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" I'm quite good at not writing. "
Ian Mcewan
Good
Writing
Quite
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" Atheists have as much conscience, possibly more, than people with deep religious conviction, and they still have the same problem of how they reconcile themselves to a bad deed in the past. It's a little easier if you've got a god to forgive you. "
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You
People
Problem
" I put it to you that there are no British poets, there are no British novelists. I have heard myself described as one, but I think really I'm an English novelist; there are Scottish poets and Scottish novelists. "
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British
You
" By concentrating on what is good in people, by appealing to their idealism and their sense of justice, and by asking them to put their faith in the future, socialists put themselves at a severe disadvantage. "
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People
" My father's drinking was sometimes a problem. And a great deal went unspoken. He was not particularly acute or articulate about the emotions. But he was very affectionate towards me. "
Ian Mcewan
Emotions
Problem
Father
" Now, I'm an atheist. I really don't believe for a moment that our moral sense comes from a god. "
Ian Mcewan
Sense
Believe
God
" You can spin stories out of the ways people understand and misunderstand each other. "
Ian Mcewan
Stories
Out
People
" Perhaps the greatest reading pleasure has an element of self-annihilation. To be so engrossed that you barely know you exist. "
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Reading
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Know
" I often don't read reviews. "
Ian Mcewan
Read
Reviews
Often
" How often one reads a contemporary full-length novel and thinks quietly, mutinously, that it would have worked out better at half or a third the length. "
Ian Mcewan
Half
Better
Thinks
" Novelists have to be adept at controlling the flow of information, and, most crucially, they have to be in charge of the narrative. "
Ian Mcewan
Narrative
Most
Information
" I apologize for being obvious, but every time I watch the curtain come down on even a halfway decent production of a Shakespeare play I feel a little sorrowful that I'll never know the man, or any man of such warm intelligence. "
Ian Mcewan
Man
Play
Know
" Something is missing in our culture. We can't quite celebrate the scientific literary tradition. "
Ian Mcewan
Tradition
Celebrate
Culture
" At the risk of sounding like Virginia Woolf, I could live on £700 a year. "
Ian Mcewan
Risk
Could
Like
" It should simply be an empirical matter whether the climate is changing or not and whether we're responsible. But the various sides of the debate have now become so tribal that it's no longer a matter of changing our views as more information comes in. "
Ian Mcewan
Debate
Matter
Become
" What I've discovered and really confirmed to myself is that opera really likes loud colours, and you need something bold, something savage, unpredictable, passionate. You can't really run a two-hour opera round some muted murmuring. "
Ian Mcewan
Bold
You
Run
" I don't really believe in evil at all. "
Ian Mcewan
Believe
Evil
Really
" 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
Interesting
God
End
" A twenty-one-year-old writer is likely to be inhibited by a lack of usable experience. Childhood and adolescence were something I knew. "
Ian Mcewan
Adolescence
Experience
Childhood
" I've yet to meet somebody who said, 'Your stories are so revolting I couldn't read them.' "
Ian Mcewan
Somebody
Said
Who
" Not being boring is quite a challenge. "
Ian Mcewan
Boring
Being
Quite
" I always used to deny this, but I guess what I'm really saying is that I was writing to shock... And I dug deep and dredged up all kinds of vile things which fascinated me at the time. "
Ian Mcewan
Time
Always
Writing
" I was an intimate sort of child who never spoke up in groups. I preferred close friends. "
Ian Mcewan
Child
Close Friends
Never
" 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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Change
People
Way
" I wouldn't mind being the lead guitarist in an incredibly successful rock band. However, I don't play the guitar. "
Ian Mcewan
Successful
Rock
Guitar
" One has to have the courage of one's pessimism. "
Ian Mcewan
Pessimism
Courage
" I don't believe there's any inherent darkness at the center of religion at all. I think religion actually is a morally neutral force. "
Ian Mcewan
Darkness
Think
Religion
" Reading reviews makes you thin-skinned. It's like waves washing layers off your skin. "
Ian Mcewan
You
Waves
Layers
" What reader wants to be told what attitude to strike? "
Ian Mcewan
Strike
Wants
Reader
" My parents were keen for me to have the education they themselves never had. They weren't able to guide me towards particular books, but they encouraged me to read, which I did, randomly and compulsively. "
Ian Mcewan
Parents
Education
Books
" We overvalue the arts in relation to the sciences. "
Ian Mcewan
Arts
Relation
Sciences