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Creativity Quote by Ian McEwan

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““Each day he made attempts … but produced nothing but quotations, thinly or well disguised, of his own work. Nothing sprang free of its own idiom, its own authority, to offer the element of surprise that would be the guarantee of originality.””

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Creativity Element of surprise

More by Ian McEwan

“As you will see, we do not believe that artists have an obligation to strike up attitudes to the war. Indeed, they are wise…

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You could say that all novels are spy novels and all novelists are spy masters.

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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.

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“It is shaming sometimes, how the body will not, or cannot, lie about emotions.”

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“While my friends struggled and calculated, I reached a solution by a set of floating steps that were partly visual, partly just a feeling…

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“Once, on a walk by a river- Eskdale in low reddish sunlight, with a dusting of snow- his daughter quoted to him an opening…

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“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,…

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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…

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“On Chesil Beach he could have called out to Florence, he could have gone after her. He did not know, or would not have…

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It was always the view of my parents...that hot weather encouraged loose morals among young people.

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I apologize for being obvious, but every time I watch the curtain come down on even a halfway decent production of a Shakespeare play…

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I would rather be physically disabled obviously than mentally. I would rather be paraplegic than nuts. And it is a terrifying prospect and actually…

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Explore all 496 Ian McEwan quotes

More Creativity quotes

The prophet who fails to present a bearable alternative and yet preaches doom is part of the trap that he postulates. Not only does…

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That's the great secret of creativity. You treat ideas like cats: you make them follow you.

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“The Soviet “creative intelligentsia” - that is, people accustomed to thinking one thing, saying another and doing a third - is as a whole…

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It’s so important to create in your own voice, to hold onto what makes you unique, and have faith in your vision.

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A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery

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You don't get lucky. You create lucky.

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By making conscious choices in our behavior and where we focus our attention, we can transform our experience of our body, decrease our biological…

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“You are the end of beauty and creativity one must have created so far.”

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Jonah Lehrer is one of the most talented explainers of science that we’ve got. What a pleasure it is to follow his investigation of…

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If you've got creativity, imagination, and intelligence, and you want to be hypnotised, then there's no reason you shouldn't be able to.

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“I believe in magic. As a writer, I create them on blank paper.”

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Creativity is like chasing chickens.

Christoph Niemann

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