Reading and writing... are exciting. The most exciting things I can think of. And now, as I reflect... I have to say… — Clive James Copy Share Image
If an artist is any good at all, then he or she will have a later phase that's more interesting than the… — Clive James Copy Share Image
First-rate science fiction was, and remains, more interesting than second-rate art. — Clive James Copy Share Image
Among artists without talent Marxism will always be popular, since it enables them to blame society for the fact that nobody wants… — Clive James Copy Share Image
“Art is the outward integration inspired by the artist's inner disintegration.” — Clive James Copy Share Image
“Thick skin is not the thing to have if you are an artist of any kind. It’s got to be bulletproof in… — Clive James Copy Share Image
Writing is a performance art for me. They're very closely aligned, writing and performing. But I'm a writer, not a performer. — Clive James Copy Share Image
Almost 70 years have gone by, and I've still got that feeling when I write... Writing, for me, is still it. It… — Clive James Copy Share Image
The secret for an artist is to make that a subject and not bang your head against the wall and give up.… — Clive James Copy Share Image
As a work of art, it reminds me of a long conversation between two drunks — Clive James Copy Share Image
The literary critic, or the critic of any other specific form of artistic expression, may detach himself from the world for as… — Clive James Copy Share Image
The provincial intellectual is doomed to arguing at low level... there is still no Australian literary world, not in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide.… — Clive James Copy Share Image
What is Camille Paglia doing, writing that an actress as gifted as Anne Heche has the mental depth of a pancake? How… — Clive James Copy Share Image
My wife spoke perfect Italian and she was very beautiful and very suave Italian men were crowding around her, talking all the time and… — Clive James Copy Share Image
The streets, at least in this part of town, seemed impossibly clean in comparison to London. The public telephones were unvandalised. For a London… — Clive James Copy Share Image
In London there was no home cooking worthy of the name. When you were in funds you ate out. But only the people whose… — Clive James Copy Share Image
Generally it is our failures that civilize us. Triumph confirms us in our habits. — Clive James Copy Share Image
I try to be specific. One thought at a time. Clear. Articulate. And above all, memorable, if you can be. You'd like to write… — Clive James Copy Share Image
Pound had argued - and Eliot had helped him prove - that a poem could be sustained by memorable moments. Olson proved that it… — Clive James Copy Share Image
One way or another, all the poets of the thirties and forties reacted to Auden, either by rejecting him or trying to absorb him. — Clive James Copy Share Image
Little books are the things to write at my age, I've decided. Avoid the big ones, go for the little ones. — Clive James Copy Share 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?… — clive james Copy Share Image
