The only writer who gives me unfeigned pleasure is P.G. Wodehouse. And even him I find a bit heavy. He takes a lot out of me. Scratching my hair, with soft whistles, with lips aquiver, I frown over Sunset at Blandings. Martin Amis More Quotes by Martin Amis More Quotes From Martin Amis The universe is a million billion light-years wide, and every inch of it would kill you if you went there. This is the position of the universe with regards to human life. Martin Amis inches light years Bullets cannot be recalled. They cannot be uninvented. But they can be taken out of the gun. Martin Amis taken military peace Love is blind; but it makes you see the blind man; teetering on the roadside . . . Martin Amis blind love-is men When success happens to an English writer, he acquires a new typewriter. When success happens to an American writer, he acquires a new life. Martin Amis typewriters new-life happens The air itself was ebony, like the denial, the refutation, of the idea of light. Martin Amis light air ideas Present-day Spain translates as many books into Spanish, annually, as the Arab world has translated into Arabic in the past 1,100 years. Martin Amis book past years When we read, we are doing more than delectating words on a page stories, characters, images, notions. We are communing with the mind of the author. Martin Amis stories mind character The satirist isn't just looking at things ironically but militantly - he wants to change them, and intends to have an effect on the world. Martin Amis effects want world I would say that the writers I like and trust have at the base of their prose something called the English sentence. An awful lot of modern writing seems to me to be a depressed use of language. Once, I called it "vow-of-poverty prose." No, give me the king in his countinghouse. Give me Updike. Martin Amis kings writing giving Perhaps there are other bits of my life that would take on content, take on shadow, if only I read more and thought less about money. Martin Amis bits shadow ifs The first thing that distinguishes a writer is that he is most alive when alone. Martin Amis alive firsts I think novelists are in the education business, really, but they're not teaching you times tables, they are teaching you responsiveness and morality and to make nuanced judgments. And really to just make the planet look a bit richer when you go out into the street. Martin Amis novelists teaching thinking Being inoffensive, and being offended, are now the twin addictions of the culture. Martin Amis addiction twins culture Seeing the world anew, as if it were new, is as old as writing. It's what all painters are trying to do, to see what's there, to see it in a way that renews it. It becomes more and more urgent as the planet gets worn flat and forest after forest is slain to print the paper for people's impressions to be scrawled down on. It becomes harder and harder to be original, to see things with an innocent eye. Innocence is much tied up with it. As the planet gets progressively less innocent, you need a more innocent eye to see it. Martin Amis eye writing people Only in art will the lion lie down with the lamb, and the rose grow without thorn. Martin Amis rose lying art Style is not neutral; it gives moral directions. Martin Amis moral style giving Your purpose when driving is not to arrive at your destination safely or quickly. Your purpose when driving is...to impress your personality on the road. Martin Amis driving purpose personality Suicide is what everyone young thinks they'll do before they get old. But they hardly ever get round to it. They just don't want to commit themselves in that way. When you're young and you look ahead, time ends in mist at twenty-five. 'Old won't happen to me', you say. But old does. Oh, old does. Old always gets you in the end. Martin Amis suicide age thinking Fiction is the only way to redeem the formlessness of life Martin Amis way fiction Life is made of fear. Some people eat fear soup three times a day. Some people eat fear soup all the meals there are. I eat it sometimes. When they bring me fear soup to eat, I try not to eat it, I try to send it back. But sometimes I'm too afraid to and have to eat it anyway. Martin Amis fear trying people
