Ian Mcewan Quotes

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

• Better
• Half
• Often

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Quotes to Explore

• Buildings are always better than drawings and models.

  

  Rafael Moneo
  • Always
  • Better
  • Buildings

• The role of designers and product makers is to really become much better editors. What kind of functionality is actually needed - and truly delightful - to consumers? Remove all the extraneous stuff.

  

  Yves Behar
  • Kind
  • Better
  • Product

• I think the show does better with newsmakers and politicians than it does with actors.

  

  Samantha Bee
  • Think
  • Better
  • Politicians

• What other grown-up gets told how to do their job so often as a writer?

  

  Rachel Cusk
  • Up
  • Job
  • Writer

• Perhaps misguided moral passion is better than confused indifference.

  

  Iris Murdoch
  • Passion
  • Moral
  • Better

• In American films, Russians are often portrayed like cartoon villains without clear motivations.

  

  Yuliya Snigir
  • American
  • Often
  • Cartoon

• I know so many people who are so much better at it than I am, and I think I'm a goofier person rather than a serious, dramatic actress, so I probably belong in comedy.

  

  Paget Brewster
  • Comedy
  • Serious
  • Actress

• The economy in Ireland has been rampaging ahead for the last 15 years. Barring an international, political or natural catastrophe, things can only get better for the Irish.

  

  Eddie Murphy
  • Political
  • Better
  • Economy

• What I'm most pleased about is that there's no particular decline. The songs I wrote 40 years ago are no worse and no better - there's a consistency.

  

  Randy Newman
  • Years
  • Better
  • Consistency

• Brad Pitt is a dude who just wants to make good movies. He's not afraid to surround himself with the greatest actors, which I always appreciate because I've also seen actors who only want to surround themselves with weak actors because it makes them look better. That ends up making a poorer movie.

  

  Garret Dillahunt
  • Up
  • Good
  • Movie

• Sometimes the kids come up with better endings than the real story.

  

  Gail Carson Levine
  • Up
  • Real
  • Kids

• I always wanted to be a singer, and so, when I was 5 years old, I started acting classes so I could be a better performer. I wanted to have a powerful voice so I could be heard.

  

  Q'orianka Kilcher
  • Powerful
  • Better
  • Acting

• Every time I go out there and compete, my number is, of course, $100 million or better.

  

  Floyd Mayweather, Jr.
  • Time
  • Better
  • Million

• Nobody wants to be against technology, but I think that regulators should not - and people should not - assume that faster is always better in markets. We need to question technology to insure that markets continue to perform their fundamental purposes.

  

  Bart Chilton
  • People
  • Question
  • Technology

• If Northern Ireland had better weather, it would be like New Zealand. It's an immensely beautiful country.

  

  Ian Beattie
  • Country
  • Beautiful
  • Better

• The great apologist has to have lived large and wild. If he's going to kiss the world's boo-boos and make up, he'd better plant some bruises first. A master apologizer has to be a Lord Byron, a Rick in Casablanca, a Lee Atwater, anyway.

  

  P. J. O'Rourke
  • Up
  • World
  • Great

• Hiking is something that I really, really like to do. It's distracting, you're in nature, and you get a nice workout that way. I would tell everyone to hike as much as they can - you just feel so much better when you get outdoors. I'm also into yoga.

  

  Odette Annable
  • Nature
  • Nice
  • Better

• What I hate in fiction is when the author knows better than the characters what they should do.

  

  Pat Barker
  • Hate
  • Better
  • Author

• In certain ways, we, many of us, stopped paying attention to the world. I have to think we would have moved on the whole climate issue in a different way if we'd been paying better attention.

  

  Karen Joy Fowler
  • World
  • Different
  • Think

• I think Maus I is better than Maus II. The standard here is whether or not it's as good as a great book of prose literature and by that standard, no, it's not that great.

  

  Ted Rall
  • Good
  • Great
  • Book

• I was a semiotics major at Brown, and there's this idea that stories are better, books are better, and movies are better if they cocked you off your axis and you were completely disoriented and you'd really have to rethink everything. Nobody has that experience, actually.

  

  Ira Glass
  • Experience
  • Better
  • Movies

• The director's very important to me, particularly when the director has a recognizable style.

  

  Willem Dafoe
  • Important
  • Style
  • Directors

• Hope is a necessity for normal life and the major weapon against the suicide impulse.

  

  Karl A. Menninger
  • Life
  • Hope
  • Suicide

• 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
  • Better
  • Half
  • Often