Very broadly, literature concerns itself with the internal, cinema with the external. — Martin Amis Copy Share Image
Often it doesn't occur to you what kind of novel you're writing until quite late on. — Martin Amis Copy Share Image
Novelists are stamina merchants, grinders, nine-to-fivers, and their career curves follow the usual arc of human endeavour. — Martin Amis Copy Share Image
“…This remains the great deficiency of literature: its imitation of nature cannot prepare you for the main events. For the main events,… — Martin Amis Copy Share Image
“The easier a thing is to write then the more the writer gets paid for writing it. (And vice versa: ask the… — Martin Amis Copy Share Image
When we read, we are doing more than delectating words on a page stories, characters, images, notions. We are communing with the… — Martin Amis Copy Share Image
Deciding to write a novel about something - as opposed to finding you are writing a novel around something - sounds to… — Martin Amis Copy Share Image
Every writer hopes or boldly assumes that his life is in some sense exemplary, that the particular will turn out to be… — Martin Amis Copy Share Image
All novelists write in a different way, but I always write in longhand and then do two versions of typescript on a… — Martin Amis Copy Share Image
I would never write about someone that forced me to write at a lower register than what I can write, — Martin Amis Copy Share Image
The process of writing a novel is getting to know more about the novel until you know everything about it. And it's… — Martin Amis Copy Share Image
Probably all writers are at some point briefly under the impression that they are in the forefront of disintegration and chaos, that… — Martin Amis Copy Share Image
When I hear about some sensational new writer I sort of think, Shut up ... you've got to be around for a… — Martin Amis Copy Share Image
“…Here we come close to one of the definitions of literary fiction. Even the best kind of popular novel just comes straight… — Martin Amis Copy Share Image
It sounds schmaltzy to say, but fiction is much more to do with love than people admit or acknowledge. The novelist has… — Martin Amis Copy Share Image
It's becoming clearer and clearer to me that the world is there to be celebrated by writers, and in fact this is… — Martin Amis Copy Share Image
No novel has ever changed anything, as far as I can see. And the great satirists, like Swift and Dickens, tend to… — Martin Amis Copy Share Image
Writers spend too much time among dead things. I thought that was profound and actually true, that you're trying to pump life… — Martin Amis Copy Share Image
“A writer’s life is half ambition and half anxiety, and there has to be both. It is no good writing a novel… — Martin Amis Copy Share Image
“Some junk novels were all about airports. Some junk novels were even called things like Airport. Why, then you might ask, was… — Martin Amis Copy Share Image
Steven Pinker says, the invention of printing and the widespread appearance of fiction - this taught empathy. If you read a novel,… — Martin Amis Copy Share Image
What did Nabokov and Joyce have in common, apart from the poor teeth and the great prose? Exile, and decades of near… — Martin Amis Copy Share Image
“Literature...describes a descent. First, gods. Then demigods. Then epic became tragedy: failed kings, failed heroes. Then the gentry. Then the middle class… — Martin Amis Copy Share Image
Every 10 years you're a different person, and the really great books evolve with you as you get older. They're full of… — Martin Amis Copy Share Image
Faith is a talent, and it goes the way of all your talents. Getting old is the subtraction of your powers. Which… — Martin Amis Copy Share Image
We live in the age of mass loquacity.We are all writing it or at any rate talking it: the memoir, the apologia,… — Martin Amis Copy Share Image
I sometimes feel I'm a sort of cult writer, rather than a mainstream writer, in that those who like my stuff like… — Martin Amis Copy Share Image
When success happens to an English writer, he acquires a new typewriter. When success happens to an American writer, he acquires a… — Martin Amis Copy Share Image
I am, incidentally, the only writer to have received the Somerset Maugham award twice - the first time for my first novel,… — Martin Amis Copy Share Image
I think all writers have a bit of genius in them, and a bit of talent. Genius retreats but talent improves. — Martin Amis Copy Share Image
The literary interview won't tell you what a writer is like. Far more compellingly to some, it will tell you what a… — Martin Amis Copy Share Image
What did Nabokov and Joyce have in common, apart from the poor teeth and the great prose? Exile, and decades of near… — Martin Amis Copy Share Image
All writers of fiction will at some point find themselves abandoning a piece of work - or find themselves putting it aside,… — Martin Amis Copy Share Image
Well, my father Kingsley Amis was a writer and it seemed natural to start writing in my late teens. I think it… — Martin Amis Copy Share Image
“What a gift. This page is briefly stained by my tears of gratitude. Novelists don't usually have it so good, do they,… — Martin Amis Copy Share Image
“Yeah,' I said and started smoking another cigarette. Unless I inform you otherwise, I'm always smoking another cigarette.” — Martin Amis Copy Share
“barrios; each barrio has two or three gangs, and all the gangs are theoretically” — Martin Amis Copy Share
I'm not interested in making a diagnostic novel or a concern. I'm 100 percent committed in fiction to the pleasure principle - that's what… — Martin Amis Copy Share
“If we all downed tools and joined hands for ten minutes and stopped believing in money, then money would no longer exist. We never… — Martin Amis Copy Share
When I see a lot of young faces in the audience, it's just sort of sinking in how important that is. Because you're old… — Martin Amis Copy Share
“I was informed by my viscera that now was the time to put my arm around her shoulders. I ignored them.” — Martin Amis Copy Share
It's becoming clearer and clearer to me that the world is there to be celebrated by writers, and in fact this is what all… — Martin Amis Copy Share
In her final months Princess Diana was being shat upon by the tabloids -- basically for sleeping with an Arab. When she died, these… — Martin Amis Copy Share
If you feel you have a strong constituency among the young, you can really die happy, because the great unanswered question, the only valid… — Martin Amis Copy Share
My life looked good on paper - where, in fact, almost all of it was being lived. — Martin Amis Copy Share
I say, 'If I had a serious brain injury I might well write a children's book', but otherwise the idea of being conscious of… — Martin Amis Copy Share
The future could go this way, that way. The future's futures have never looked so rocky. Don't put money on it. Take my advice… — Martin Amis Copy Share
“There exists a subterranean world where pathological fantasies disguised as ideas are churned out by crooks and half-educated fanatics [notably the lower clergy] for… — Martin Amis Copy Share
![“…Here we come close to one of the definitions of literary fiction. Even the best kind of popular novel just comes straight at you; you have no conversation with a popular novel. Whereas you do have a conversation (you have an intense argument) with [literary fiction].” quote by Martin Amis](https://sms4smile.com/q/img-quotes/976/martin-amis-704_books_here-we-come-close-to-one-of-the-definit_2294595.jpg)
