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Martin Amis

Martin Amis Quotes

Novelist

Martin Amis is a British novelist known for his satirical and darkly humorous writing. His works often explore the moral dilemmas of modern society and the complexities of individual identity. Born on August 25, 1949, Amis is considered an important figure in British literature.

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Famous Martin Amis Quotes

“Well, my father Kingsley Amis was a writer and it seemed natural to start writing in my late teens. I think it was good that I began when I was young and bold and foolish, otherwise I'd have become too self-conscious and aware of the weight of not having written anything yet.”

Thinking Writing Wells Self Young Father Natural Written Late Conscious Weight Foolish Teens Self Conscious

Author:Martin Amis

“My father always had doubts about the Booker prize, although they evaporated on the announcement that he had won it.”

Father Doubt Prize Announcements

Author:Martin Amis

“There isn't what my father called the cruising hostility of the English press - where they're looking around for something to attack. You don't feel that there's a great reservoir of resentment in the press as you do in England.”

Feels Father England Presses Resentment Hostility Reservoirs

Author:Martin Amis

“My father once said there's a correlation between a nation's cuisine and its people: England, nice people, nasty food; France, nice food, nasty people; Spain, nice people, nasty food; Italy, nice people, nice food; and Germany, nasty food, nasty people. And I've always thought that there must be something terribly wrong with the German character - and that there is, really.”

People Character Father Nice Nasty Nice People

Author:Martin Amis

“The thing is that I am a member of that sad, ever-dwindling minority... the child of an unbroken home. I have carried this albatross since the age of eleven, when I started at grammar school. Not a day would pass without somebody I knew turning out to be adopted or illegitimate, or to have mothers who were about to hare off with some bloke, or to have dead fathers and shabby stepfathers. What busy lives they led. How I envied their excuses for introspection, their ear-marked receptacles for every just antagonism and noble loyalty.”

Source: The Rachel papers

“One of the unseen benefits of having children is that they deliver you from your own selfishness. There's no going back.”

Children Father Benefits Selfishness Unseen Having Children Happy Fathers Day

Author:Martin Amis

“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.”

Has Beens Father Style Adults Comic Aggressive Adjectives

Book:The Rub of Time: Bellow, Nabokov, Hitchens, Travolta, Trump. Essays and Reportage, 1986-2016

Source: The Rub of Time: Bellow, Nabokov, Hitchens, Travolta, Trump. Essays and Reportage, 1986-2016

“It is very difficult, it is perhaps impossible, for someone who loves his mother to love the woman whom your father left her for.”

Mother Father Left Difficult Impossible

Author:Martin Amis

“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.”

Years Mother Father Style Minimalist Lenient

Book:The Rub of Time: Bellow, Nabokov, Hitchens, Travolta, Trump. Essays and Reportage, 1986-2016

Source: The Rub of Time: Bellow, Nabokov, Hitchens, Travolta, Trump. Essays and Reportage, 1986-2016

About the Author

Born: August 25, 1949
Known for: Novelist
Quotes: 265

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Thinking Writing Way Ifs People Novel Knows Want Feels Fiction Humans Men Seems World America Father Looks Age Faces Sometimes

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People Ifs Thinking Knows Men World Way Want Love Life Inspirational Needs Giving Feels Should Writing Trying Years Mind Firsts

Books & Sources

MoneyRelated source material

The InformationRelated source material

The Rub of Time: Bellow, Nabokov, Hitchens, Travolta, Trump. Essays and Reportage, 1986-2016Related source material

London FieldsRelated source material

The War Against Cliche: Essays and Reviews 1971-2000Related source material

Time's arrow, or, The nature of the offenceRelated source material

The Rachel papersRelated source material

Time's ArrowRelated source material

Koba the Dread: Laughter and the Twenty MillionRelated source material

The Pregnant WidowRelated source material

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