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Books Quote by Ian McEwan

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““The novel is too capacious, inclusive, unruly, and personal for perfection. Too long, sometimes too much like life.””

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Books Life Too long

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 Books quotes

I think a new world will arise out of the religious mists when we approach our Bible with the idea that it is not…

Aiden Wilson Tozer

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If I had a dollar for every time I couldn’t sleep, I could buy a billion locks and finally read a book in peace.

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If what I write is literature, I guess you'd better emphasize the 'litter.'

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My sentences got sharper and my stories more efficient, and I gradually learned to imagine the reader more clearly and to empathize with that…

Karen Thompson Walker

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Young men, especially in America, write to me and ask me to recommend “a course of reading.” Distrust a course of reading! People who…

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“Within the pages of books, I've journeyed to Mandalay, the Milky Way and Santa Fe, without once having to leave my armchair.”

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The Rosary is the book of the blind.

Fulton J. Sheen

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“Tacitus did not write a most dangerous book. His readers made it so.”

Christopher K. Krebs

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“Take some books and read; that’s an immense help; and books are always good company if you have the right sort.”

Louisa May Alcott

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Reader, if you are gifted with nerves like mine, aspire to any character but that of a wit.

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I have many who keep me going, I am very fortunate in this sense. There is nothing like a child who knows more about…

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I think books in which people are really happy and things are going well are probably the most challenging novels there are to write,…

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