When I was very young, one of my favourite books was Captain's Courageous and I suppose one of the reasons I loved it, it was a life I knew I should have had, learning all the different bits of the ship and learning to catch fish and rig sails and to -all the things that I never learned and I never learned the discipline, but I hungered after it.

Clive James

Categorized in : Book Should Have Discipline

It is only when they go wrong that machines remind you how powerful they are.

Clive James

powerful witty science

Sick of being a prisoner of my childhood, I want to put it behind me.

Clive James

childhood sick want

Common sense and a sense of humour are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humour is just common sense, dancing. Those who lack humour are without judgment and should be trusted with nothing.

Clive James

common-sense dancing moving

Twin miracles of mascara, her eyes looked like the corpses of two small crows that had crashed into a chalk cliff.

Clive James

miracle eye two

When I finally embraced abstinence it was because of the simple urge to work a longer day. Thus, without joining Alcoholics Anonymous, I was at last able to leave Piss-Artists Notorious.

Clive James

humorous drinking funny

As a work of art, it reminds me of a long conversation between two drunks

Clive James

wisdom two art

A life without fame can be a good life, but fame without a life is no life at all.

Clive James

good-life wisdom america

Arnold Schwarzenegger looks like a brown condom full of walnuts.

Clive James

schwarzenegger condom looks

Fiction is life with the dull bits left out.

Clive James

wisdom dull fiction

When I was young I never believed that Australia was anything else except blessed. I thought it was a little dull when I was young, but that was 'cause I was a snob.

Clive James

australia causes blessed

Generally it is our failures that civilize us. Triumph confirms us in our habits.

Clive James

triumph habit

If an artist is any good at all, then he or she will have a later phase that's more interesting than the early one.

Clive James

phases artist interesting

She was good at playing abstract confusion in the same way that a midget is good at being short.

Clive James

abstract confusion way

Among artists without talent Marxism will always be popular, since it enables them to blame society for the fact that nobody wants to hear what they have to say.

Clive James

artist want facts

Bjorn Borg looks like a hunchbacked, jut-bottomed version of Lizabeth Scott, impersonating a bearded Apache princess.

Clive James

princess tennis looks

Beyoncé and pathos are strangers. Amy Winehouse and pathos are flatmates, and you should see the kitchen.

Clive James

amy kitchen classic

Jack Aubrey is a tremendous tower of strength and you always want to read about him.

Clive James

towers want

I won't have to miss smoking any more. Nobody smokes where I'm going: It's like a row of restaurants in California.

Clive James

california missing smoking

I was a big pothead for a short period. That was what ticked me off that I shouldn't go near hard drugs, actually, because I would consume the stuff as if it was going out of style and it rapidly occurred to me that if I ever tried a hard drug, the same thing would happen, so I never did.

Clive James

style going-out drug

They had a... dog called Bluey. A know psychopath, Bluey would attack himself if nothing else was available.

Clive James

psychopath dog funny