Home / Quotes / Quote by Martin Amis

Quote by Martin Amis

“The process of writing a novel begins with a pang, a moment of recognition, and a situation, a character, or something you read in a paper, that seems to go off, like a solar flare inside your head.”

Quote by Martin Amis

Author

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. more

You May Also Like

“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.”

Ifs Thinking Humans Long Said Form Used Pleasure Class Study Special Subjects Shapes Projects Devil Okay Agree Suicide Used To Be Mess Gentleman Satan Long Ago Inward Bangs Shameful Infantile

Author:Martin Amis

“I dont know if there is a personal identity. We all imagine that we are absolute individuals. But when we begin to look for where this individuality resides, its very difficult to find.”

Ifs Knows Looks Individual Difficult Imagine Identity Absolutes Individuality Imagine That Personal Identity

Author:John Banville

“With the crime novels, its delightful to have protagonists I can revisit in book after book. Its like having a fictitious family.”

I Can Book Novel Crime Delightful Protagonists Crime Novels

Author:John Banville

“I read Nietzsche when I was a teenager and then I went back to reading him when I was in my thirties, and his voice spoke directly to me. Nietzsche is such a superb literary artist.”

Artist Reading Voice Teenager Spokes Superb

Author:John Banville

“I live in Dublin, God knows why. There are greatly more congenial places I could have settled in - Italy, France, Manhattan - but I like the climate here, and Irish light seems to be essential for me and for my writing.”

Knows Writing Light Seems Essentials Climate France God Knows Manhattan Dublin

Author:John Banville

“We live in time, it bounds us and defines us, and time is supposed to measure history, isn't it? But if we can't understand time, can't grasp its mysteries of pace and progress, what chance do we have with history--even our own small, personal, largely undocumented piece of it?”

Ifs Chance Pieces Progress Mystery Bounds Pace

Book:The Sense of an Ending

Source: The Sense of an Ending

“Life is like invading Russia. A blitz start, massed shakos, plumes dancing like a flustered henhouse; a period of svelte progress recorded in ebullient despatches as the enemy falls back; then the beginning of a long, morale-sapping trudge with rations getting shorter and the first snowflakes upon your face. The enemy burns Moscow and you yield to General January, whose fingernails are very icicles. Bitter retreat. Harrying Cossacks. Eventually you fall beneath a boy-gunner's grapeshot while crossing some Polish river not even marked on your general's map.”

“Novels help us to resist the temptation to think of the past as deficient.”

Thinking Helping Past Novel Temptation

Book:Conversations with Ian McEwan

Source: Conversations with Ian McEwan

“For the professors in the academy, for the humanities generally, misery is more amenable to analysis: happiness is a harder nut to crack.”

Humanity Harder Misery Analysis Cracks Professors Nuts Academy Amenable

Author:Ian Mcewan

“You can spin stories out of the ways people understand and misunderstand each other.”

People Way Stories

Author:Ian Mcewan