Kingsley Amis

“Jake was close to tears. In that moment he saw the world in its true light, as a place where nothing had ever been any good and nothing of significance done: no art worth a second look, no philosophy of the slightest appositeness, no law but served the state, no history that gave an inkling of how it had been and what had happened. And no love, only egotism, infatuation and lust.”

“More will mean worse.”

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

“Your attitude measures up to the two requirements of love. You want to go to bed with her and can't, and you don't know her very well. Ignorance of the other person topped up with deprivation, Jim. You fit the formula all right, and what's more you want to go on fitting it.”

“There was no end to the ways in which nice things are nicer than nasty ones.”

“Man's love is of man's life a thing apart;Girls aren't like that.”

“Friendship includes charity. But there's no charity in sex.”

“'You're still the same girl. What people do doesn't change their nature.'She shook her head.[…] 'What they do is their nature,' she said.”

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

“He was short on the one attribute certain to meet the immediate respect of the rich — i.e. being rich — and must therefore obtrude deterrents against being buggered about.”

“You can't screw the rich, something in Ronnie muttered as Miss Quick got off him with quite as much alacrity as she had got on him. You have to let them screw you. Or else you leave out screwing altogether.”

“I was a shit when I met you. I still am in lots of ways. But because of you I've had to give up trying to be a dedicated, full-time shit. I couldn't make it, hadn't the strength of character. Which is a pity in a way, because when you fall back into the ranks of the failed shits or amateur shits or incidental shits you start taking on responsibility for other people.”

“Should you revisit usNot the royal tourist.”

“I told myself that I could soon start to relish the state of being alone […], only to find as usual that I was stuck with myself.[…] Two's company, which is bad enough in all conscience, but one's a crowd.”

“From an outsider's point of view, a naked woman out of doors is either a sun-worshipper or a rape victim; a man in the same state is either a sexual criminal or a plain lunatic.”

“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.”

“If there's one word that sums up everything that's gone wrong since the war, it's Workshop. After Youth, that is. (pg. 140)”

“'What's that stuff they put in ships to keep them from going all over the place?''That's right. People's sex drives are like ballast, they keep them steady. It sounds wrong, but they do.'”

“Be glad you're fifty — andBut not all that many. Cheers!”

“There isn't another other sex. (p. 254)”

“It’s quite a problem for retired people, I do see. All of a sudden the evening starts starting after breakfast. All those hours with nothing to stay sober for. Or nothing to naturally stay sober during, if you see what I…We used to laugh at Malcolm’s dad, the way he used to mark up the wireless programs in Radio Times in different-coloured pencils. Never caught him listening to any of them but it was an hour taken care of.”

“While he was climbing the litter-strewn steps his left ball gave a sharp twinge, on and off like a light-switch, then again after he had sat down. Nothing. Just one of the aches and pains that come and go. No significance.”

“Any man in the company of two women is outnumbered four to one however amiable they may be.”

“'Oh, I see,' said Jenny. 'But you're just getting these men [New Age gurus] to help you all feel better. I thought when you talked about helping people you meant other people. You know, like the blind.''Isn't everybody blind, in one way or another?' asked Wendy.”

“'Shitty things are always simple. Same as great things. Patrick Standish, in conversation.'”

“Nothing divided people more deeply than how they felt about cats.”

“Death has this much to be said for it:”