Quotessence
Home / Authors / Clive James
Clive James

Clive James Quotes

Author

Filter quotes by topic

AllClassicIfsPeopleThinkingWritingFunnyWorldMenHumorousShould

Famous Clive James Quotes

“Tolstoy's novels are about the planet Earth and Solzhenitsyn's are about Pluto. Tolstoy is writing about a society and Solzhenitsyn is writing about the lack of one... surely there is something wilfully unhistorical about being disappointed that Pierre Bezhukov or Andrey Bolkonsky or Natasha Rostov find no equivalents in Cancer Ward. Characterization in such wealthy detail has become, in Solzhenitsyn's Russia, a thing of the past, and to expect it is like expecting the fur-lined brocades and gold-threaded silks of the Florentine Renaissance to crop up in Goya's visions of the horrors of war. Solzhenitsyn's contemporary novels- I mean the novels set in the Soviet Union- are not really concerned with society. They are concerned with what happens after society has been destroyed.”

SocietyRussiaSoviet UnionTolstoySolzhenitsynCancer Ward
Book:Cultural Cohesion: The Essential Essays
Create image

“In the Olympic Games it is neither important to win nor important to have taken part. Sport is just something people who feel like doing it do, up to the point where the effort involved becomes inhuman. Beyond that point, politics takes over. Politically, the Olympic Games are a farce on every level. It is grotesque that in 1976 the BBC commentators should still be sounding like old Pathé Pictorials, desperately cherishing an illusion of British influence which would be fatuous even if it were real.”

PoliticsSportOlympic Games19761970s
Book:Visions Before Midnight
Create image

“And every writer cherishes the dream of setting the young on fire, even if only by a cigarette butt tossed casually over the shoulder, and when we meet young people who say that they were inspired by what we said to rush off and read the books we were talking about, we can congratulate ourselves for all those guilty hours when, the last two left after a long lunch, we went on arguing about everything we knew.”

HumorInspirationReadingBooksClive James
Author:Clive James
Create image

“Too many of my friends are dead, and others wrecked By various diseases of the intellect Or failing body. How am I still upright? And even I sleep half the day, cough half the night. How did it come to this? How else but through The course of years, and what its workings do To wood, stone, glass and almost all the metals, Smouldering already in the fresh rose petals. Our energy deceived us. Blessed with the knack To get things done, we thought to get it back Each time we lost it, just by taking breath — And some of us are racing yet as we face death. Well, good to see you. Sorry I have to fly. I’m struggling with a deadline, God knows why, And ghosts keep interrupting. Think of me The way I do of you. Quite often. Constantly.”

Clive JamesWe Being Ghosts
Author:Clive James
Create image

“A decade ago, critics suggested biotech crops would not be valuable in the developing world. Now 90 percent of farmers who benefit are resource-poor farmers in developing countries. These helped alleviate 7.7 million subsistence farmers in China, India, South Africa, the Philippines from abject poverty.”

WorldCountryPoorPovertyMillionsBenefitsPercentResourcesIndiaSouthCriticsChinaValuableDecadesDevelopingFarmersSouth AfricaCropsPhilippinesAlleviateDeveloping CountriesSubsistenceBiotech
Author:Clive James
Create image

“In the twelfth century the Basque fishermen of Biarritz used to hunt whales with deadly efficiency. When the whales sensibly moved away, the Basques chased them further and further, with the consequence that the fishermen of Biarritz discovered America before Columbus did. This is a matter for local pride but on a larger view it is not quite so stunning, since with the possible exception of the Swiss everybody discovered America before Columbus did.”

MatterAmericaUsedViewsHistoryCenturyHumourPrideConsequenceMovedLocalsExceptionEfficiencyHuntsWhalesFishermanStunningColumbusSwissBasques
Book:Flying Visits
Create image

“Once, BBC television had echoed BBC radio in being a haven for standard English pronunciation. Then regional accents came in: a democratic plus. Then slipshod usage came in: an egalitarian minus. By now slovenly grammar is even more rife on the BBC channels than on ITV. In this regard a decline can be clearly charted... If the BBC, once the guardian of the English language, has now become its most implacable enemy, let us at least be grateful when the massacre is carried out with style.”

IfsLanguageEnemyStyleHavensTelevisionStandardsRegardGratefulDemocraticRadioPlusDeclineAccentsBe GratefulGrammarGuardianEnglish LanguageUsageMassacresMinusPronunciationStandard English
Author:Clive James
Create image

“When you cut it up, put the pieces in your mouth and swallowed them, the British hamburger shaped itself to the bottom on your stomach like ballast, while interacting with your gastric juices to form an incipient belch of enormous potential, an airship which had been inflated in a garage. This belch, when silently released, would cause people standing twenty yards away to start examining the soles of their shoes. The vocalized version sounded like a bag of tools thrown into a bog.”

PeopleFunnyFormCausesPiecesCuttingMouthsStandingToolsEnglandTwentiesBottomShoesBritishEnormousVersionsThrownBagsStomachYardsJuiceGarageExaminingInteractingHamburgersBogsBallastGastricAirships
Book:Falling Towards England: (Unreliable Memoirs Continued)
Create image

“In the movies first impressions are everything. Or, to put it less drastically, in the movies there are no later impressions without a first impression, because you will have stopped watching. Sometimes a critic persuades you to give an unpromising-looking movie a chance, but the movie had better convey the impression pretty quickly that the critic might be right.”

GivingFirstsSometimesMightChanceCriticsImpressionFirst ImpressionMight Is Right
Author:Clive James
Create image

“What is Camille Paglia doing, writing that an actress as gifted as Anne Heche has the mental depth of a pancake? How many pancake brains could do what Heche did with David Mamet's dialogue in Wag the Dog? No doubt Heche has been stuck with a few bad gigs, but Paglia, of all people, must be well aware that being an actress is not the same safe ride as being the tenured university professor of humanities and media studies at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia.”

PeopleWritingWellsHas BeensArtHumanityBrainStudyDoubtMediaDogSafeDepthUniversityActressesStuckDialogueNo DoubtProfessorsGiftedGigsPhiladelphiaPancakesWagsWag The DogUniversity ProfessorsCamilleMedia Studies
Author:Clive James
Create image