All Clive James Quotes
- Generally it is our failures that civilize us. Triumph confirms us in our habits. Civilize
- As a work of art, it reminds me of a long conversation between two drunks Art
- Reading and writing... are exciting. The most exciting things I can think of. And now, as I reflect... I have to say that I've been… Amused
- Almost 70 years have gone by, and I've still got that feeling when I write... Writing, for me, is still it. It has always been… Act
- The provincial intellectual is doomed to arguing at low level... there is still no Australian literary world, not in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide. It is some… Adelaide
- Arnold Schwarzenegger looks like a condom full of walnuts.... Arnold
- If the humanism that makes civilization civilized is to be preserved into the new century, it will need advocates. These advocates will need a memory,… Advocates
- How much atonement is enough? The bombing must be allowed as at least part-payment: those of our young people who are concerned about the moral… Air
- The rattle of plastic keys reminds me of a squadron of butterflies failing to fight their way out of a paper bag. Bag
- You should never trust anyone who listens to Mahler before they're forty. Anyone
- Not everyone who wants to make a film is crazy, but almost everyone who is crazy wants to make a film. Almost Everyone
- Men never sound more stupid than when they're telling you they're a very complex personality. Complex
- A luxury liner is really just a bad play surrounded by water. Bad
- You can never get a woman to sit down and listen to a drum solo. Down
- The literary critic, or the critic of any other specific form of artistic expression, may detach himself from the world for as long as the… Any
- Disco dancing is just the steady thump of a giant moron knocking in an endless nail. Dancing
- Like most people who smoked umpteen cigarettes a day, I tasted only the first one. The succeeding umpteen minus one were a compulsive ritual which… Burning
- Here was my first lesson on the resolutely maintained untidiness and ill-health of the English upper orders. In baggy evening dress and old before their… Across
- Dinner was meat - not hunks of meat, as in Australia, but pathetic scraps of meat, as in Britain - which the girls upstairs transformed… Adding
- In London there was no home cooking worthy of the name. When you were in funds you ate out. But only the people whose faces… Afford
- In recent years, perhaps encouraged by competition from McDonald's, the British hamburger has become a credit to the nation. At the time of which I… Beer
- Spending all my remaining money on a ticket to Florence was rendered needlessly complicated by the fact that none of the ticket-sellers had ever heard… All
- In Italy, for the same price as a typical British hamburger meal including sweet, a builder's labourer could eat like a king - rather better… Better
- Perhaps I should have pointed out more often that without her (mother's) guidance and example I might have gone straight from short pants to Long… Bay
- A decade ago, critics suggested biotech crops would not be valuable in the developing world. Now 90 percent of farmers who benefit are resource-poor farmers… Abject