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Martin Amis Biography

Martin Louis Amis (born 25 August 1949) is a British novelist, essayist and memoirist. His best-known novels are Money (1984) and London Fields (1989). He has received the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his memoir Experience and has been listed for the Booker Prize twice to date (shortlisted in 1991 for Time's Arrow and longlisted in 2003 for Yellow Dog). Amis served as the Professor of Creative Writing at the Centre for New Writing at the University of Manchester until 2011. In 2008, The Times named him one of the 50 greatest British writers since 1945.

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Martin Amis Quotes

The air itself was ebony, like the denial, the refutation, of the idea of light.

Air, Denial, Idea, Ideas, Light, Like

It sounds schmaltzy to say, but fiction is much more to do with love than people admit or acknowledge. The novelist has to not only love his characters - which you do, without even thinking about it, just as you love your children. But also to love the reader, and that's what I mean by the pleasure principle.

Character, Characters, Children, Love You, People, Reader

It's often said of American politics that it's a huge juggernaut and the president can change the direction by two or three degrees in either direction, but not much more. In fact, I think the president's power is limited, much more than the prime minister in England.

Fact, Juggernaut, Power, President, Said, Thinking

There's a lot of anti-intellectualism in Britain. And the writer's views on this or that are really of less importance, as they see it, than that of the man in the street.

Men, Views, He Man, Importance, Man

The Uruguayans have a sort of purity. I don't know where they got it, and I doubt even if they know from where they got it. Perhaps they didn't kill off their major population.

Doubt, Know, Purity, Sort, Uruguayans

Perhaps there are other bits of my life that would take on content, take on shadow, if only I read more and thought less about money.

Bits, Content, Ifs, Life, Shadow, Take

Who would want the socialist Utopia? Especially if you were at all artistic - you want all those inequalities, because that's what makes life interesting.

Artistic, Inequalities, Interesting, Life, Want

The satirist isn't just looking at things ironically but militantly - he wants to change them, and intends to have an effect on the world.

Effects, Intends, Satirist, Things, Want, World

My belief is that everything that's written about you is actually secondary showbiz nonsense, and you shouldn't take any notice of it.

Actually, Belief, Nonsense, Take, Written

Is there any good reason why we cannot extend our multi-cultural generosity to include another dimension? That of time. The past, too, is another country. Its ghosts may look strange and frightening and slightly misshapen in body and mind, but all the more reason then, to welcome them to our shores.

Country, Frightening, Generosity, Ghosts, Past

One of the many things I do not understand about Americans is this: what is it like to be a citizen of a superpower, to maintain democratically the means of planetary extinction. I wonder how this contributes to the dreamlife of America, a dreamlife that is so deep and troubled.

America, Citizens, Deep, Maintain, Mean, Understand

When success happens to an English writer, he acquires a new typewriter. When success happens to an American writer, he acquires a new life.

Acquires, Happens, New Life, Success, Typewriters, Writer

It is terrible to see someone being beaten up by the English language.

Beaten, English Language, Language, See, Terrible

Screw-top wine has improved the quality of life by about ten percent, wouldn't you say?

Improved, Life, Quality, Screws, Wine

All that rejection from Republicans has a bit of a racist element. It was very necessary to have a black president, and it's been a great thing. It will help, in the end, to ease the trauma of slavery and civil war. The war against slavery cost almost 800,000 American lives - that's how strongly they felt about it. And it's not going to go away in a century.

Black, Cost, Help, Racist, Rejection, War

Envy never comes to the ball dressed as envy; it comes dressed as high moral standards or distaste for materialism.

Envy, Balls, Moral, Standards, Distaste

The argument, now, is about whether Bolshevik Russia was 'better' than Nazi Germany. In the days when the New Left dawned, the argument was about whether Bolshevik Russia was better than America.

America, Bolshevik, Dawned, Days, Russia, War

Vidal gives the impression of believing that the entire heterosexual edifice - registry offices, 'Romeo and Juliet,' the disposable diaper - is just a sorry story of self-hypnosis and mass hysteria: a hoax, a racket, or sheer propaganda.

Believe, Hoax, Hypnosis, Offices, Propaganda, Sorry

You cannot combine being a movie star with not being a movie star.

Actors, Combine, Movie, Star, Stars

Seeing the world anew, as if it were new, is as old as writing. It's what all painters are trying to do, to see what's there, to see it in a way that renews it. It becomes more and more urgent as the planet gets worn flat and forest after forest is slain to print the paper for people's impressions to be scrawled down on. It becomes harder and harder to be original, to see things with an innocent eye. Innocence is much tied up with it. As the planet gets progressively less innocent, you need a more innocent eye to see it.

Eye, Old, People, Print, Things, Writing

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