Мартин Эмис цитаты
Мартин Эмис
Дата рождения: 25. Август 1949
Другие имена: Martin Louis Amis
Ма́ртин Лу́ис Э́мис — английский прозаик и критик.
Цитаты Мартин Эмис
„Style is not neutral; it gives moral directions.“
— Martin Amis
Novelists in Interview (1985) edited by John Haffenden
„All publicity isn't good publicity.“
— Martin Amis, книга Experience
Experience (2000), Context: All publicity isn't good publicity. As a New York publicist put it: "What: the guy's an asshole so I'll go and buy his novel?"
Part I: Thinking with the Blood
„It now seems that pornography is the leading sex educator in the Western world.“
— Martin Amis
Playboy interview (2003), Context: It now seems that pornography is the leading sex educator in the Western world. And the idea of having your sexual nature determined by a medallion-in-the-chest-hair artist out in Los Angeles is really humiliating. I'm not talking about me, but I'm talking about my children's contemporaries, kids aged 18. They're getting their sex tips from some charlatan at Wicked Video.
„Viewed at its grandest, P.C. is an attempt to accelerate evolution. To speak truthfully, while that's still okay, everybody is a racist or has racial prejudices. This is because human beings tend to like the similar, the familiar, the familial.“
— Martin Amis
"Political Correctness: Robert Bly and Philip Larkin" (1997), Context: Viewed at its grandest, P. C. is an attempt to accelerate evolution. To speak truthfully, while that's still okay, everybody is a racist or has racial prejudices. This is because human beings tend to like the similar, the familiar, the familial. Again, I say, I am a racist. I am not as racist as my parents. My children will not be as racist as I am. Freedom from racial prejudice is what we hope for down the line. Impatient with this hope, this process, P. C. seeks to get things done right now. In a generation or at the snap of a finger, you can simply announce yourself to be purged of these atavisms.
„It's been said that happiness writes white. It doesn't show up on the page.“
— Martin Amis
Context: It's been said that happiness writes white. It doesn't show up on the page. When you're on holiday and writing a letter home to a friend, no one wants a letter that says the food is good and the weather is charming and the accommodations comfortable. You want to hear about lost passports and rat-filled shacks.
"The Sadistic Muse" - an interview with Laura Miller at salon.com (10 February 1998) http://web.archive.org/web/20000110052318/http://www.salon.com/books/int/1998/02/cov_si_10int.html
„It's all very irrational, like all ideology.“
— Martin Amis
Playboy interview (2003), Context: I think it's a very confused culture. On the one hand, no one is better than anyone else; no one is prettier. On the other hand, everyone is completely obsessed by their looks and by how they strike the world. On the one hand, we're all equal; on the other hand, everyone's a superstar. It's all very irrational, like all ideology.
„Violence must come; America must have catharsis. We would hope that the response will be, above all, non-escalatory. It should also mirror the original attack in that it should have the capacity to astonish.“
— Martin Amis
"Fear and loathing" (2001), Context: Violence must come; America must have catharsis. We would hope that the response will be, above all, non-escalatory. It should also mirror the original attack in that it should have the capacity to astonish. A utopian example: the crippled and benighted people of Afghanistan, hunkering down for a winter of famine, should not be bombarded with cruise missiles; they should be bombarded with consignments of food, firmly marked LENDLEASE — USA.
„I think it's a very confused culture. On the one hand, no one is better than anyone else; no one is prettier. On the other hand, everyone is completely obsessed by their looks and by how they strike the world.“
— Martin Amis
Playboy interview (2003), Context: I think it's a very confused culture. On the one hand, no one is better than anyone else; no one is prettier. On the other hand, everyone is completely obsessed by their looks and by how they strike the world. On the one hand, we're all equal; on the other hand, everyone's a superstar. It's all very irrational, like all ideology.
„Like all "acts of terrorism" (easily and unsubjectively defined as organised violence against civilians), September 11 was an attack on morality: we felt a general deficit.“
— Martin Amis
"The Palace of the End" (2003), Context: Like all "acts of terrorism" (easily and unsubjectively defined as organised violence against civilians), September 11 was an attack on morality: we felt a general deficit. Who, on September 10, was expecting by Christmastime to be reading unscandalised editorials in the Herald Tribune about the pros and cons of using torture on captured "enemy combatants"? Who expected Britain to renounce the doctrine of nuclear no-first-use? Terrorism undermines morality. Then, too, it undermines reason. … No, you wouldn't expect such a massive world-historical jolt, which will reverberate for centuries, to be effortlessly absorbed. But the suspicion remains that America is not behaving rationally — that America is behaving like someone still in shock.
„Interacting with literature is easy.“
— Martin Amis
The War Against Cliché: Essays and Reviews 1971-2000 (2001), Context: One of the historical vulnerabilities of literature, as a subject for study, is that it has never seemed difficult enough. This may come as news to the buckled figure of the book reviewer, but it's true. Hence the various attempts to elevate it, complicate it, systematize it. Interacting with literature is easy.
Foreword, p. xiii
