Ian Mcewan Quotes
Oh, I've become immune to the Booker. I think we need something a little more like the Pulitzer prize, where there isn't this great race.
Quotes to Explore
-
All works of art are commissioned in the sense that no artist can create one by a simple act of will but must wait until what he believes to be a good idea for a work comes to him.
-
Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it.
-
There are really two kinds of optimism. There's the complacent, Pollyanna optimism that says, 'Don't worry - everything will be just fine,' and that allows one to just lay back and do nothing about the problems around you. Then there's what we call dynamic optimism. That's an optimism based on action.
-
The Pistols were like my work of art. They were my canvas.
-
My introduction to the Madonna Inn came as a young boy when we would take summer vacations to a nearby town. My dad would take us into their gift shop bathroom, which was a huge waterfall that functioned as the men's urinal. So as a kid, this was the most amazing thing I had ever seen.
-
I like strong female characters. I try to write them as role models for young girls.
-
I've had five weddings but if I'm really honest and if I count significant de factos... I've had nine husbands... which sounds appalling but when you consider I started at 18 and I'm 65 it's not so bad.
-
I think, when I was younger, I believed in - and yearned for - conventional beauty. I thought there was a spectrum from ugly to beautiful, and that you could objectively plot everyone you saw along it.
-
I find my earliest memories covering the anachronistic features of a previous incarnation. Clear recollections came to me of a distant life, a yogi amidst the Himalayan snows. These glimpses of the past, by some dimensionless link, also afforded me a glimpse of the future.
-
The only people who never fail are those who never try.
-
Success is really about your mindset.
-
It is only human supremacy, which is as unacceptable as racism and sexism, that makes us afraid of being more inclusive.
-
I'm on this diet where you're supposed to eat only fish and meat.
-
Every fight, I'm fighting blind opponents. I don't know who it's going to be, who I'm fighting, if I'm really fighting them.
-
I've been things and seen places.
-
I haven't reported my missing credit card to the police because whoever stole it is spending less than my wife.
-
Religion is the opium of the masses.
-
I always knew I was going to be rich. I don't think I ever doubted it for a minute.
-
Who do I like? I am a big fan of French and Saunders - not that that they are particularly stand-up I have to say, but I think they have been great for women and they are of themselves just incredibly funny whether they are male or female.
-
There is no point in pointing fingers because there are three fingers pointing back at you.
-
When I go to an art gallery and stand in front of a painting, I don't want someone telling me what I should be seeing or thinking; I want to feel whatever I feel, see whatever I see, and figure out what I figure out.
-
Whatever its flaws, the United Nations is still the only institution that brings together all the countries of the world. And it is the best forum for the United States to spur countries to act - and to hold them accountable when they don't.
-
Oh, I've become immune to the Booker. I think we need something a little more like the Pulitzer prize, where there isn't this great race.
