Clive James (Vivian Leopold James) Quotes
I was born in 1939. The other big event of that year was the outbreak of the Second World War, but for the moment that did not affect me.
Quotes to Explore
-
The Sangh Parivar, against which I had been waging a war, misled the people. My opponents used the Election Commission and the bureaucracy to win a political battle.
-
The philosophers of the Middle Ages demonstrated both that the Earth did not exist and also that it was flat. Today they are still arguing about whether the world exists, but they no longer dispute about whether it is flat.
-
The key battleground in the war on terrorism, therefore, is in the minds of the American public.
-
For believers, both privilege and privation are a trial, and both demand responses: one demands service, and the other demands patience. The greatest privilege is to live well in flourishing lands; the greatest privation is to live in the midst of war, especially civil war.
-
The great apologist has to have lived large and wild. If he's going to kiss the world's boo-boos and make up, he'd better plant some bruises first. A master apologizer has to be a Lord Byron, a Rick in Casablanca, a Lee Atwater, anyway.
-
I never set out to write songs about the world around me... it just kind of came about as a result of paying more attention to things.
-
Shoes are very emotional. For women, they carry the message that you want to give to the world. One day you want to be sexy, or super powerful at your job - you wear a great pump. If you want to be on-the-go and running after your kids - you wear a great flat.
-
My speech is really important to me, but the thing is at the moment it can't be more important than my singing. Until I'm an established name all over the world, my speech won't be more important than my music.
-
'Black Messiah' is a hell of a name for an album. It can easily be misunderstood. Many will think it's about religion. Some will jump to the conclusion that I'm calling myself a Black Messiah. For me, the title is about all of us. It's about the world. It's about an idea we can all aspire to. We should all aspire to be a Black Messiah.
-
I feel the art world in New York has a stronger following than Britain. If you go to a New York art district on a Saturday morning, it will be so busy with families and openings - art is much more ingrained in the culture.
-
We have people around the world who live in the United States, and these people don't deserve to be called traitors.
-
It's a crazy world, so sports and athletics and music can be a form of escapism.
-
When I'm writing books, something weird happens; and the result is the books contain a large amount of what you could call 'supernaturalism.' As a writer, I find I need that to explain the world I'm writing about.
-
I have always loved astronomy, and being an astronomer once lurked in the back of my mind. But I was never good at algebra. In fact, I flunked it twice in high school.
-
A lot of times we see choices in front of us, and we limit ourselves by what we see. God wants us to see His way of doing things. And His way is always greater than our ways.
-
Ukrainian business must really embrace global competition. We need to understand that competition for resources and clients is not with competitors from across the street or from another city, but with millions of businesses around the world.
-
We now occupy the proud attitude of a sovereign and independent Republic, which will impose upon us the obligation of evincing to the world that we are worthy to be free. This will only be accomplished by wise legislation, the maintenance of our integrity, and the faithful and just redemption of our plighted faith wherever it has been pledged.
-
You can learn new things at any time in your life if you're willing to be a beginner. If you actually learn to like being a beginner, the whole world opens up to you.
-
The salvation of the world lies in the human heart.
-
If we continue...to consume the world until there's no more to consume, then there's going to come a day, sure as hell, when our children or their children or their children's children are going to look back on us - on you and me - and say to themselves, "My God, what kind of monsters were these people?"
-
I have never been a girlie girl and have always been a boys' girl with an equal amount of friends who were boys and girls.
-
Muslims are hardly welcome to pick up the trash on Europe's playgrounds. Don't let Europe's current round of playing pacifist dress up fool you: This is the continent that perfected genocide and ethnic cleansing, the happy-go-lucky slice of humanity that brought us such recent hits as the Holocaust and Srebenica.
-
I like the word 'autopilot' more than I like the word 'self-driving.' 'Self-driving' sounds like it's going to do something you don't want it to do. 'Autopilot' is a good thing to have in planes, and we should have it in cars.
-
I was born in 1939. The other big event of that year was the outbreak of the Second World War, but for the moment that did not affect me.
