Life is made of fear. Some people eat fear soup three times a day. Some people eat fear soup all the meals there are. I eat it sometimes. When they bring me fear soup to eat, I try not to eat it, I try to send it back. But sometimes I’m too afraid to and have to eat it anyway.
—Martin Amis
Sometimes I feel that life is passing me by, not slowly either, but with ropes of steam and spark-spattered wheels and a hoarse roar of power or terror. It’s passing, yet I’m the one who’s doing all the moving.
—Martin Amis
Topics: Time
Style is not neutral; it gives moral directions.
—Martin Amis
Topics: Style
Every writer hopes or boldly assumes that his life is in some sense exemplary, that the particular will turn out to be universal.
—Martin Amis
Topics: Writers, Writing, Authors & Writing
More will mean worse.
—Martin Amis
Addictions do come in handy sometimes: at least you have to get out of bed for them.
—Martin Amis
Topics: Perspective
Weapons are like money; no one knows the meaning of enough.
—Martin Amis
Topics: War, Meaning, One liners
Bullets cannot be recalled. They cannot be uninvented. But they can be taken out of the gun.
—Martin Amis
Topics: Peace
Money doesn’t mind if we say it’s evil, it goes from strength to strength. It’s a fiction, an addiction, and a tacit conspiracy.
—Martin Amis
Topics: Money
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
Margaret Drabble English Novelist
J. G. Ballard English Novelist
E. M. Forster English Novelist
Doris Lessing British Novelist, Poet
H. G. Wells English Novelist, Historian
Graham Greene British Novelist
Brian Aldiss English Novelist
Jeanette Winterson English Novelist
P. D. James British Novelist
Ray Bradbury American Science-Fiction Writer