I couldn't think about novels at all. It seemed the only writing that was appropriate to that horrendous event was journalism, reportage.… — Ian Mcewan Copy Share Image
In a story you only had to wish, you only had to write it down and you could have the world...It seemed… — Ian Mcewan Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
It's good to get your hands dirty a bit and to test how you see things at a given point. And it's… — Ian Mcewan Copy Share Image
I always used to deny this, but I guess what I'm really saying is that I was writing to shock... And I… — Ian Mcewan Copy Share Image
“In a story you only had to wish, you only had to write it down and you could have the world.” — Ian McEwan Copy Share Image
When people ask, "Is there any advice you'd give a young writer?," I say write short stories. They afford lots of failure.… — Ian Mcewan Copy Share Image
The best way to tell people about climate change is through non-fiction. There's a vast literature of outstanding writing on the subject. — Ian Mcewan Copy Share Image
Writers are said to have superstitions and little rituals. Readers have them too. — Ian Mcewan Copy Share Image
Wasn't writing a kind of soaring, an achievable form of flight, of fancy, of the imagination? — Ian Mcewan Copy Share Image
Scientists do stand on the shoulders of giants, just as do writers. Conversely, in the arts we do make discoveries. We do… — Ian Mcewan Copy Share Image
“I was a born empiricist. I believed that writers were paid to pretend, and where appropriate should make use of the real… — Ian McEwan Copy Share Image
“I craved a form of naive realism. I paid special attention, I craned my readerly neck whenever a London street I knew… — Ian McEwan Copy Share Image
“But this first clumsy attempt showed her that the imagination itself was a source of secrets: once she had begun a story,… — Ian McEwan Copy Share Image
In my experience an appreciative letter from a fellow writer means a lot. — Ian Mcewan Copy Share Image
But how to do feelings? All very well to write "She felt sad", or describe what a sad person might do, but… — Ian Mcewan Copy Share Image
At that moment, the urge to be writing was stronger than any notion she had of what she might write. — Ian Mcewan Copy Share Image
There was, in my view, an unwritten contract with the reader that the writer must honour. No single element of an imagined… — Ian Mcewan Copy Share Image
“As you will see, we do not believe that artists have an obligation to strike up attitudes to the war. Indeed, they are wise… — Ian McEwan Copy Share Image
You could say that all novels are spy novels and all novelists are spy masters. — Ian Mcewan Copy Share Image
I've never had a moment's doubt. I love you. I believe in you completely. You are my dearest one. My reason for life. — Ian Mcewan Copy Share Image
“It is shaming sometimes, how the body will not, or cannot, lie about emotions.” — Ian McEwan Copy Share Image
“While my friends struggled and calculated, I reached a solution by a set of floating steps that were partly visual, partly just a feeling… — Ian McEwan Copy Share Image
“Once, on a walk by a river- Eskdale in low reddish sunlight, with a dusting of snow- his daughter quoted to him an opening… — Ian McEwan Copy Share Image
“Perhaps it's one of those cases of a microcosm giving you the whole world. Like a spode dinner plate. Or a single cell. Or,… — Ian McEwan Copy Share Image
Who you get, and how it works out- there's so much luck involved, as well as the million branching consequences of your conscious choice… — Ian Mcewan Copy Share Image
“On Chesil Beach he could have called out to Florence, he could have gone after her. He did not know, or would not have… — Ian McEwan Copy Share Image
It was always the view of my parents...that hot weather encouraged loose morals among young people. — Ian Mcewan Copy Share Image
I apologize for being obvious, but every time I watch the curtain come down on even a halfway decent production of a Shakespeare play… — Ian Mcewan Copy Share Image
I would rather be physically disabled obviously than mentally. I would rather be paraplegic than nuts. And it is a terrifying prospect and actually… — Ian Mcewan Copy Share Image
