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Martin Amis

Martin Amis Quotes

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Famous Martin Amis Quotes

“What is the only provocation that could bring about the use of nuclear weapons? Nuclear weapons. What is the priority target for nuclear weapons? Nuclear weapons. What is the only established defense against nuclear weapons? Nuclear weapons. How do we prevent the use of nuclear weapons? By threatening to use nuclear weapons. And we can't get rid of nuclear weapons, because of nuclear weapons. The intransigence, it seems, is a function of the weapons themselves.”

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Author:Martin Amis
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“September 11 was a day of de-Enlightenment. Politics stood revealed as a veritable Walpurgis Night of the irrational. And such old, old stuff. The conflicts we now face or fear involve opposed geographical arenas, but also opposed centuries or even millennia. It is a landscape of ferocious anachronisms: nuclear jihad in the Indian subcontinent; the medieval agonism of Islam; the Bronze Age blunderings of the Middle East.”

AgeFacesNightStuffMiddleCenturyConflictEnlightenmentIslamEastNuclearLandscapeIndianMiddle EastSeptemberIrrationalArenaMedievalSeptember 11JihadBronzeOld StuffAnachronism
Author:Martin Amis
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“Amis is acutely, vibrantly sensitive to the different registers of laughter. He knows that it can be the most affirming and uniquely human sound, and also the most sinister and animalistic one. He understands every note of every octave that separates the liberating shout of mirth from the cackle of a bully or the snigger of a sadist.”

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Author:Martin Amis
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“It used to be said, not so long ago, that every suicide gave Satan special pleasure. I don't think that's true-unless it isn't true either that the Devil is a gentleman. If the Devil has no class at all, then okay, I agree: He gets a bang out of suicide. Because suicide is a mess. As a subject for study, suicide is perhaps uniquely incoherent. And the act itself is without shape and without form. The human project implodes, contorts inward-shameful, infantile, writhing, gesturing. It's a mess in there.”

IfsThinkingHumansLongSaidFormUsedPleasureClassStudySpecialSubjectsShapesProjectsDevilOkayAgreeSuicideUsed To BeMessGentlemanSatanLong AgoInwardBangsShamefulInfantile
Author:Martin Amis
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“Vidal gives the impression of believing that the entire heterosexual edifice - registry offices, 'Romeo and Juliet,' the disposable diaper - is just a sorry story of self-hypnosis and mass hysteria: a hoax, a racket, or sheer propaganda.”

GivingBelieveSelfStoriesOfficeMassSorryImpressionPropagandaSheerHysteriaJulietDiapersRacketDisposableEdificeHypnosisHoaxesMass Hysteria
Book:The War Against Cliche: Essays and Reviews 1971-2000
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“Dickens is a much misunderstood and mis-approached writer, in that he tends to be read, particularly in the twentieth century, as a social commentator - like the great Victorians, a realist in his way. But he isn't at all like that. His genre is actually more like a fairy tale - weird transformations, long voyages from which people come back altered, parental mysteries, semi-magical twists.”

PeopleWayLongSocialMysteryCenturyTransformationTalesGenreFairyFairy TaleTwistsMisunderstoodTwentieth CenturyVoyagesAlteredCommentatorsRealistParentalDickensGenre Is
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“America is a younger country than England, obviously, and as self-awareness is forming in America - are we a collection of immigrants, are we a load of Italians and Germans and Jews and Brits and Irish, or are we a country with a soul and an identity? - there was a subliminal sense, they knew that the writers would be the ones who would answer those questions.”

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Author:Martin Amis
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