I try to be specific. One thought at a time. Clear. Articulate. And above all, memorable, if you can be. You'd like… — 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
If we want a book to do more than what it does, that's a condemnation. If we want it to do more… — Clive James Copy Share Image
They had a... dog called Bluey. A know psychopath, Bluey would attack himself if nothing else was available. — 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… — Clive James Copy Share Image
She wasn't just beautiful. She was like the sun coming up: coming up giggling. She was giggling as if she had just… — Clive James Copy Share Image
Young men especially - I don't know if young women feel much the same - but young men think they are immortal,… — Clive James Copy Share Image
People should be stopped from writing poetry. There's far too much of it. And if they're any good, they'll go ahead anyways. — Clive James Copy Share Image
If the humanism that makes civilization civilized is to be preserved into the new century, it will need advocates. These advocates will… — Clive James Copy Share Image
How much atonement is enough? The bombing must be allowed as at least part-payment: those of our young people who are concerned… — Clive James Copy Share Image
I was wrong, however, to suppose that Sellers thought the world revolved around him. He thought the cosmos did too, and history,… — Clive James Copy Share Image
The great thing about living until you get a bit older if you are a writer, and especially a poet, is that… — Clive James Copy Share Image
I work on the assumption, or let it be the fear, that the reader will stop reading if I stop being interesting. — Clive James Copy Share Image
John McEnroe looks as if he is serving round the edge of an imaginary building. — Clive James Copy Share Image
I taught myself Russian, which was very, very useful, especially for poetry and in fact if you can't read Pushkin in Russian,… — Clive James Copy Share Image
I was a big pothead for a short period. That was what ticked me off that I shouldn't go near hard drugs,… — Clive James Copy Share Image
Freedom and diversity guard each other, and if a country could form the whole of one's character, Napoleon III and Victor Hugo… — Clive James Copy Share Image
Sometimes I feel if I was young again, I would wrap a bandana around my head like Douglas Fairbanks Sr. and I… — Clive James Copy Share Image
Once, BBC television had echoed BBC radio in being a haven for standard English pronunciation. Then regional accents came in: a democratic… — 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
