Kingsley Amis Quotes
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When starting to think about any novel, part of the motive is: I'm going to show them, this time.
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More will mean worse.
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Being American is, I think, a very difficult thing in art, because all the elements are European ...
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Laziness has become the chief characteristic of journalism, displacing incompetence.
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I'll pour you the first one and after that, if you don't have one, it's your own f****** fault. You know where it is.
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I am always incorrigibly interested in the behaviour of the 'human animal', and look forward to perusing divers effusions of your lively pen.
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Growing older, I have lost the need to be political, which means ... the need to be left. I am driven to grudging toleration of the Conservative Party because it is the party of non-politics, of resistance to politics.
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Feeling a tremendous rakehell, and not liking myself much for it, and feeling rather a good chap for not liking myself much for it, and not liking myself at all for feeling rather a good chap.
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Jake was close to tears. In that moment he saw the world in its true light, as a place where nothing had ever been any good and nothing of significance done: no art worth a second look, no philosophy of the slightest appositeness, no law but served the state, no history that gave an inkling of how it had been and what had happened. And no love, only egotism, infatuation and lust.
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Nice things are nicer than nasty ones.
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Hangover cure: Rigorous sex, hydration, hot bath, then "go up for half an hour in an open aeroplane. (needless to say, with a non-hungover person at the controls)."
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Death has this much to be said for it: You don't have to get out of bed for it. Wherever you happen to be They bring it to you—free.
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Twentieth century music is like paedophilia. No matter how persuasively and persistently its champions urge their cause, it will never be accepted by the public at large, who will continue to regard it with incomprehension, outrage and repugnance.
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Education is one thing and instruction, however worthy, necessary and incidentally or monetarily educative, another.
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Man's love is of man's life a thing apart;Girls aren't like that.
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There was no end to the ways in which nice things are nicer than nasty ones.
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Whatever part drink may play in the writer's life, it must play none in his or her work.
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Women don't seem to think it's good enough; They write about it.
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It's never pleasant to have one's unquestioning beliefs put in their historical context, as I know from experience, I can assure you.
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Now and then I become conscious of having the reputation of being one of the great drinkers, if not one of the great drunks, of our time.
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While he was climbing the litter-strewn steps his left ball gave a sharp twinge, on and off like a light-switch, then again after he had sat down. Nothing. Just one of the aches and pains that come and go. No significance.
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I sometimes feel that more lousy dishes are presented under the banner of pate than any other.
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No pleasure is worth giving up for the sake of two more years in a geriatric home at Weston-super-Mare.
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How wrong people always were when they said: 'It's better to know the worst than go on not knowing either way.' No; they had it exactly the wrong way round. Tell me the truth, doctor, I'd sooner know. But only if the truth is what I want to hear.