Ian Rankin Quotes
Quotes to Explore
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Even in the beginning, when we knew there was a legal argument about how much our song sounds like his song, as one songwriter to another, I wasn't sure that Cat Stevens would take that as bad.
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When I write a movie, I write it for me.
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I like to have interesting things to write about. And when one says something is 'interesting,' one almost always means 'bad.'
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Fiction reveals truth that reality obscures.
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I think what is happening is I think first of all there is confidence in the U.K. economy. We're in a German rather than a Greek position in international financial markets, which is very positive and keeps our debt service costs down, and we're also beginning to see real evidence of rebalancing.
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African Americans are one of the oldest ethnic groups in this country. We been here since the beginning. Before the beginning.
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What I hate in fiction is when the author knows better than the characters what they should do.
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I just write mechanical things.
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My grandmother died in childbirth, and my great-aunt lived with us. She had bound feet. She never knew how to read or write.
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'Seize the Story' takes readers all the way through the process of writing fiction, from beginning to end. Every element, from dialogue to setting, plotting to character creation, is laid out and illustrated with examples. But the tone of the book is not that of a dry writing manual - it's definitely written for teenagers.
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If I had to rank my skills, I have a long way to go before I can write a good graphic novel.
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I tend to resist invitations to interpret my own fiction.
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Great indeed is the sublimity of the Creative, to which all beings owe their beginning and which permeates all heaven.
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I opened up every can of worms I could. I got to the place where I would peel back one layer, and then another layer, and the stuff that would come up underneath was so inspiring, it made me want to write about it.
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I love science fiction.
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If you can write it, I can be it.
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I never write my stories as a wake-up call as such. I simply explore the kinds of situations that I find personally challenging by placing characters into situations that challenge them in similar ways.
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'The One-Eyed Man' is a novel that was one I never intended to write.
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Every revolution seems impossible at the beginning, and after it happens, it was inevitable.
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When the devil makes his offer (always open incidentally) of the kingdoms of the earth, it is the bordellos which glow so alluringly to most of us, not the banks and the counting-houses and the snow-swept corridors of power . . . Sex is the mysticism of a materialistic society - in the beginning was the Flesh, and the Flesh became Word; with its own mysteries - this is my birth pill; swallow it in remembrance of me! - and its own sacred texts and scriptures - the erotica which fall like black atomic rain on the just and unjust alike, drenching us, stupefying us. To be carnally minded is life!
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We're always trying to outdo ourselves, trying to do better, trying to write better songs. I think we want to inspire other people as well, so that's what we'll try to do through future songs.
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I need to complete my homework on time.
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I remember one of them - it was a 1941 black Ford. As it went by very slow, a guy leaned out with a shotgun, keeping a bead on us all the time, and we just had to walk slowly and wait for him to kill us... They didn't kill us, but they didn't end it, either.
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Right from the very beginning, I knew I wanted to write palpably Scottish fiction.
