Ian Mcewan Quotes
Quotes to Explore
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If I can hit No. 1 on the 'New York Times' best-seller list, I'm thinking of having the entire list tattooed on my body somewhere. It would be fabulous.
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Some of the best ideas that we've invested in have made no sense to conventional sources.
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The crack of the bat, the sound of baseballs thumping into gloves, the infield chatter are like birdsong to the baseball starved.
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You can't show up at the bedside and then turn on your skills. You have to keep your game sharp all the time.
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I'm inspired every time I see a role I'd like to play, an actor turn in a well crafted performance, a story I'd like to tell, direct or produce.
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I think there is a generation gap. I personally look forward to, as our generation becomes the leaders, you are gonna see a change, and I think hopefully gay marriage will be a part of that country.
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We must not be hampered by yesterday's myths in concentrating on today's needs.
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When I draw something, the brain and the hands work together.
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When I think about parallels between myself and an Olympian, I believe that success in the world of business is underpinned by very similar principles of perseverance and hard work.
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I learned to play piano in a rock n' roll context or band context from country records - you know, Floyd Cramer - and from the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and Stax. And none of those are keyboard records.
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I work rather blindly. I have a theory that seems to work with me that some of the best things you ever do sort of come through you. You don't know where you get the impetus and response to what's before your eyes.
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The Doomsayers have always had their uses, since they trigger the coping mechanism that often prevents the events they forecast.
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That's the American way. If little kids don't aspire to make money like I did, what the hell good is this country?
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I'm very much bigger than I was, so what? It's not really fatness, it's development.
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You have filled my tea with lumps of sugar, and though I asked most distinctly for bread and butter, you have given me cake. I am known for the gentleness of my disposition, and the extraordinary sweetness of my nature, but I warn you, Miss Cardew, you may go too far.
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The queers of the sixties, like those since, have connived with their repression under a veneer of respectability. Good mannered city queens in suits and pinstripes, so busy establishing themselves, were useless at changing anything.
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Talent is God-given; be humble. Fame is man-given; be thankful. Conceit is self-given; be careful.
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Criticism is something we can avoid easily by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.
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At present I absolutely want to paint a starry sky. It often seems to me that night is still more richly coloured than the day; having hues of the most intense violets, blues and greens. If only you pay attention to it you will see that certain stars are lemon-yellow, others pink or a green, blue and forget-me-not brilliance. And without my expatiating on this theme it is obvious that putting little white dots on the blue-black is not enough to paint a starry sky.
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It takes a certain amount of courage to tackle very hard problems in science, I now realise. You don't know what the timescale of your work will be: decades or only a few years.
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The worldly relations of men and women often form an equation that cancels out without warning when some insignificant factor has been added to either side.
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As if channeling Robbe-Grillet, who strove to establish 'new relations between man and the world,' Sesshu Foster's electrifying prose poems tenderly examine then fiercely weave stark-and-broken realities into luminous dream-like narratives on the game of life.
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We overvalue the arts in relation to the sciences.
