Ian Mcewan
Ian Mcewan
Ian Russell McEwan CBE FRSA FRSLis an English novelist and screenwriter. In 2008, The Times featured him on their list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945"...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionScreenwriter
Date of Birth21 June 1948
atheist believe moral
Now, I'm an atheist. I really don't believe for a moment that our moral sense comes from a god.
believe evil
I don't really believe in evil at all.
grudge
I don't hold grudges.
believe thinking darkness
I don't believe there's any inherent darkness at the center of religion at all. I think religion actually is a morally neutral force.
determined novel turns
I actually find novels that are determined to be funny at every turn quite oppressive.
virginia years risk
At the risk of sounding like Virginia Woolf, I could live on £700 a year.
years childhood twenties
A twenty-one-year-old writer is likely to be inhibited by a lack of usable experience. Childhood and adolescence were something I knew.
religious regret errors
One important theme is the extent to which one can ever correct an error, especially outside any frame of religious forgiveness. All of us have done something we regret - how we manage to remove that from our conscience, or whether that's even possible, interested me.
would-be social secrecy
The end of secrecy would be the end of the novel - especially the English novel. The English novel requires social secrecy, personal secrecy.
writing perfect if-i-could
If I could write the perfect novella I would die happy.
mean letters appreciative
In my experience an appreciative letter from a fellow writer means a lot.
feelings fades lighters
What is it precisely, that feeling of 'returning' from a poem? Something is lighter, softer, larger - then it fades, but never completely.
luxury psychosis safety
The luxury of being half-asleep, exploring the fringes of psychosis in safety.
girl self his-love
When he thought of her, it rather amazed him, that he had let that girl with her violin go. Now, of course, he saw that her self-effacing proposal was quite irrelevant. All she had needed was the certainty of his love, and his reassurance that there was no hurry when a lifetime lay ahead of them. Love and patience- if only he had had them both at once- would surely have seen them both through.