Kingsley Amis quotes: wise famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Kingsley Amis

Kingsley Amis Famous Quotes & Sayings

Discover top inspirational quotes from Kingsley Amis on Wise Famous Quotes.

If there's one word that sums up everything that's gone wrong since the war, it's Workshop. After Youth, that is.

Some mysterious revenge of nature has seen to it that no poem in praise of drink or tobacco (or snuff, if any) can succeed.

Outside every fat man there was an even fatter man trying to close in.

He who truly believes he has a hangover has no hangover.

Self criticism must be my guide to action, and the first rule for its employment is that in itself it is not a virtue, only a procedure.

The rewards for being sane may not be very many, but knowing what's funny is one of them.

He thought how much he liked her and had in common with her, and how much she'd like and have in common with him if she only knew him.

It's a letdown if the comedian doesn't finally actually really sit on his hat.

More always means worse.

He was of the faith chiefly in the sense that the church he currently did not attend was Catholic.

I am too old a hand to be put off pleasure by even the certain prospect of not enjoying it.

It is not extraordinary that the extraterrestrial origin of women was a recurrent theme of science fiction.

There is nothing which has yet been contrived by man by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern or inn. - SAMUEL JOHNSON

Yevgeny Yevtushenko: 'You atheist?'
Kingsley Amis: 'Well, yes, but it's more that I hate him.

There are other things to a woman than taking her to bed.

Wives and such are constantly filling up any refrigerator they have a claim on, even its ice-compartment, with irrelevant rubbish like food.

Up to a point go for quantity rather than quality. Most people would rather have two glasses of ordinary decent port than one of a rare vintage.

Misprize common sense at your peril is my motto.

It is a poor mind that is never in conflict.

The trouble with the hypochondriac is that he will be wrong about his condition nine hundred and ninety-nine times.

Let complication thrive.

When starting to think about any novel, part of the motive is: I'm going to show them, this time.

Now and then I become conscious of having the reputation of being one of the great drinkers, if not one of the great drunks, of our time.

I want a dish to taste good, rather than to have been seethed in pig's milk and served wrapped in a rhubarb leaf with grated thistle root.

The real trouble with liars ... was that there could never be any guarantee against their occasionally telling the truth.

We should be wrong to demand that a critic must stay on the point all the time; it is enough if he remains in orbit around it

No wonder people are so horrible when they start life as children.

America takes her writers too seriously.

Sex stops when you pull up your pants,
Love never lets you go.

For the first time he really felt that it was no use trying to save those who fundamentally would rather not be saved.

A German wine label is one of the things life's too short for.

It was no wonder that people were so horrible when they started life as children.

I sometimes feel that more lousy dishes are presented under the banner of pate than any other.

It is no wonder that people are so horrible when they start their life as children.

If you can't annoy somebody, there is little point in writing.

I was never an Angry Young Man. I am angry only when I hit my thumb with a hammer.

A bad review may spoil your breakfast, but you shouldn't allow it to spoil your lunch.

Women are really much nicer than men: No wonder we like them.

If you can't annoy somebody, there's little point in writing.

With all respect to James Bond, a martini should be stirred, not shaken.

Nice things are nicer than nasty ones.

Consciousness was upon him before he could get out of the way.

Nothing short of physical handicap has ever made anybody turn over a new leaf.

Like all people who try to exhaust a subject, he exhausted his listeners.

The first, indeed the only, requirement of a diet is that is should lose you weight without reducing your alcoholic intake by the smallest degree.

He resolved, having done it once, never to move his eyeballs again.

For a moment he felt like devoting the next ten years to working his way to a position as art critic on purpose to review Bertrand's work unfavorably.

Beware of curiously shaped or oddly-got-up bottles: you are likely to be paying for the parcel rather than what is wrapped up in it.

To write things down as luck wasn't the same as writing them off as non-existent or in some way beneath consideration.

A blonde girl wearing a man's shirt but in all other visible respects unmanly to the point of outright effeminacy.

Politics is a thing that only the unsophisticated can really go for.

Education is one thing and instruction, however worthy, necessary and incidentally or monetarily educative, another.

I am always incorrigibly interested in the behaviour of the 'human animal', and look forward to perusing divers effusions of your lively pen.

Cited by the author of 'Lucky Jim' as one of the most dismal depressing questions in the English language: Shall we go straight in?

The Scandinavians are dear people but they've never been what you might call bywords for wit and sparkle, have they?

If you are using an adverb, you have got the verb wrong.

Only a world without love strikes me as instantly and decisively more terrible than one without music.

There was no excuse which didn't consist of inexcusable.

SF's NO GOOD!
They bellow 'til we're deaf
But =this= is good
Well, then, it's not SF!

His mouth had been used as a latrine by some small creature of the night, and then as its mausoleum.

It is natural and harmless in English to use a preposition to end a sentence with.

Doing what you wanted to do was the only training, and the only preliminary, needed for doing more of what you wanted to do.

Sex is a momentary itch, love never lets you go.

Whatever part drink may play in the writer's life, it must play none in his or her work.

I'll pour you the first one and after that, if you don't have one, it's your own f****** fault. You know where it is.

I thought to myself how much more welcome a faculty the imagination would be if we could tell when it was at work and when not.

Laziness has become the chief characteristic of journalism, displacing incompetence.

You bloody old towser-faced boot-faced totem-pole on a crap reservation.

It's never pleasant to have one's unquestioning beliefs put in their historical context, as I know from experience, I can assure you.

Being American is, I think, a very difficult thing in art, because all the elements are European ...

{Victor} was no exception to a rule of Alun's that men over fifty who took care of themselves were not to be trusted.

Cats are only human, they have their faults.