Quotes About Martin Amis

My literary career kicked off in 1956 when, as a resident of Swansea, South Wales, I published my first novel, 'Lucky Jim.'

Kingsley Amis was a lenient father. His paternal style, in the early years, can best be described as amiably minimalist - in other words, my mother did it all.

All my adult life I have been searching for the right adjective to describe my father's peculiarly aggressive comic style. I recently settled on 'defamatory.

The middle class is doing fine in fiction. But it's not what gets me going. I love the working class, and everyone from it I've met, and think they're incredibly witty, inventive - there's a lot of poetry there.

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.

As so often when Mr Rhodes gets grateful and reverent, you have to read the sentence twice, even though you didn't want to read it once.

One recalls John Updike's argument: the only evidence for the existence of God is the collective human yearning that it should be so.

He had promised my payout would be halfway to six figures. And it was. It was three figures.

I was once asked: 'Are you an Islamophobe?' And the answer is no. What I am is an Islamismophobe, or better say an anti-Islamist, because a phobia is an irrational fear, and it is not irrational to fear something that says it wants to kill you.

In the solitude of my cell I have come to the bitter realisation that I have sinned gravely against humanity.

John Updike once argued that although fiction can withstand any amount of egocentricity, it is wholly allergic to narcissism.

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.

I don't hate humanity and I'm not interested in people who do. Although, it's funny, actually, some of my favorite writers really do. Like Martin Amis. My dirty secret. 'London Fields' is one of my favorite books ever. And it's indefensible! But he's so funny... I forgive him everything.

To discuss a Martin Amis book, you must first discuss the orchestrated release of a Martin Amis book. In London, which rightly prides itself on the vibrancy of its literary cottage industry, Amis is the Steve Jobs of book promoters, and his product rollouts are as carefully managed as anything Apple dreams up.

Closure is a greasy little word which, moreover, describes a nonexistent condition. The truth ... is that nobody gets over anything.

The middle class is doing fine in fiction. But it's not what gets me going. I love the working class, and everyone from it I've met, and think they're incredibly witty, inventive - there's a lot of poetry there.

Never trust a poet who can drive. Never trust a poet at the wheel. If he can drive, distrust the poems.

I hire tea by the tea bag.