They're always looking forward to going places they're just coming back from, or regretting doing things they haven't yet done. They say hello when they mean goodbye. Martin Amis More Quotes by Martin Amis More Quotes From Martin Amis The champions of militant Islam are, of course, misogynists, woman-haters; they are also misologists - haters of reason. Their armed doctrine is little more than a chaotic penal code underscored by impotent dreams of genocide. And, like all religions, it is a massive agglutination of stock response, of cliches, of inherited and unexamined formulations. Martin Amis championislamdream What did Nabokov and Joyce have in common, apart from the poor teeth and the great prose? Exile, and decades of near pauperism. A compulsive tendency to overtip. An uxoriousness that their wives deservedly inspired. More than that, they both lived their lives 'beautifully'--not in any Jamesian sense (where, besides, ferocious solvency would have been a prerequisite), but in the droll fortitude of their perseverance. They got the work done, with style. Martin Amis perseverancestylewife The true manipulator never has a reputation for manipulating. Martin Amis manipulatortrue-manreputation When you’ve lost all your play, guess what love becomes. Work. Work that gets harder every hour. Martin Amis hoursplaylost Don't dumb down; always write for your top five percent of readers. Martin Amis readerdumbwriting I always do my draft in long hand because even the ink is part of the flow. Martin Amis writinglonghands Envy never comes to the ball dressed as envy; it comes dressed as high moral standards or distaste for materialism. Martin Amis envyballsmoral It's an ancient idea that the leader of a democracy should not be the cleverest but the most average. That's an arguable point, but the world has decided otherwise - except in America, where it still divides the country right down the middle. Martin Amis averagecountryideas Style isn't something added on; it's intrinsic to the perceptions and the way you see life. Martin Amis styleperceptionway These are the Seven Deadly Sins: Avarice, Envy, Pride, Gluttony, Lust, Anger, Sloth. These are the seven deadly sins: venality, paranoia, insecurity, excess, carnality, contempt, boredom. Martin Amis boredomenvypride Since it is no longer permissible to disparage any single faith or creed, let us start disparaging all of them... A religion is a belief system with no basis in reality whatever. Religious belief is without reason and without dignity, and its record is near-universally dreadful. Martin Amis atheismreligiousreality If you want to know the real meaning of pornography, it is the utter dissociation of love and sex, the banishment of love from the sexual arena. Martin Amis realwantsex People are always talking on their phones, or looking at their phones, because they don't want to be alone with their thoughts. Martin Amis phonestalkingpeople You can kill time in a number of ways but it always depends on the kind of time you're fighting: some time is unkillable, immortal Martin Amis fightingtimenumbers Religious belief is without reason and without dignity, and its record is near-universally dreadful. Martin Amis atheismreligiousreligion Most writers need a wound, either physical or spiritual. Martin Amis woundsspiritualneeds Love is an abstract noun, something nebulous. And yet love turns out to be the only part of us that is solid, as the world turns upside down and the screen goes black. Martin Amis blackloveworld Dickens is a much misunderstood and mis-approached writer, in that he tends to be read, particularly in the twentieth century, as a social commentator - like the great Victorians, a realist in his way. But he isn't at all like that. His genre is actually more like a fairy tale - weird transformations, long voyages from which people come back altered, parental mysteries, semi-magical twists. Martin Amis genre-islongpeople It's without doubt my main subject. The way masculinity can go wrong. And I'm something of a gynocrat in a utopian kind of way. Martin Amis kinddoubtway This (writing) is the love of your life. It's what I want to do when I wake up. Nothing feels so absorbing, so fulfilling. Martin Amis wake-upwantwriting
