#is

Before acting, I wanted to become a journalist. I also toyed with the idea of being a chef - but that's only when people asked me what I wanted to be. In fact, I always used to say I wanted to be an actor, but I didn't ever believe that I was good enough to be come one. ↗

— Ian Mckellen

#actor #also #always #asked #become

Perhaps the greatest reading pleasure has an element of self-annihilation. To be so engrossed that you barely know you exist. ↗

— Ian Mcewan

#element #exist #greatest #know #perhaps

Scientists do stand on the shoulders of giants, just as do writers. Conversely, in the arts we do make discoveries. We do refine our tools. So I am arguing with, or at least playing with, the idea that art never improves. ↗

— Ian Mcewan

#arguing #art #arts #conversely #discoveries

Something is missing in our culture. We can't quite celebrate the scientific literary tradition. ↗

— Ian Mcewan

#culture #literary #missing #our #quite

The end of secrecy would be the end of the novel - especially the English novel. The English novel requires social secrecy, personal secrecy. ↗

— Ian Mcewan

#english #especially #novel #personal #requires

The moment you have children and a mortgage you want things to work; you're locked into the human project and you want it to flourish. ↗

— Ian Mcewan

#flourish #human #into #locked #moment

What is it precisely, that feeling of 'returning' from a poem? Something is lighter, softer, larger - then it fades, but never completely. ↗

— Ian Mcewan

#fades #feeling #larger #lighter #never

You can spin stories out of the ways people understand and misunderstand each other. ↗

— Ian Mcewan

#misunderstand #other #out #people #spin

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

— Ian Mcewan

#masters #novelists #novels #say #spy

They talk of the dignity of work. The dignity is in leisure. ↗

— Herman Melville

#leisure #talk #work