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Kingsley Amis Biography

Sir Kingsley William Amis, CBE (16 April 1922 – 22 October 1995) was an English novelist, poet, critic, and teacher. He wrote more than 20 novels, six volumes of poetry, a memoir, various short stories, radio and television scripts, along with works of social and literary criticism. According to his biographer, Zachary Leader, Amis was "the finest English comic novelist of the second half of the twentieth century." He is the father of British novelist Martin Amis.

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Kingsley Amis Quotes

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

Banner, Cooking, Food, Presented, Sometimes, Under

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

Close, Fatter, Food, Funny, Man, Men

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

Degree, Degrees, Intake, Requirements, Smallest, Weight

The ideal of brotherhood of man, the building of the Just City, is one that cannot be discarded without lifelong feelings of disappointment and loss. But, if we are to live in the real world, discard it we must.

City, Disappointment, Feelings, Loss, Man, Real

Nice things are nicer than nasty ones.

Nasty, Nice, Nice Things, Ones

Growing older, I have lost the need to be political, which means. . . the need to be left. I am driven to grudging toleration of the Conservative Party because it is the party of non-politics, of resistance to politics.

Grudging, Mean, Older, Party, Political

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

Art, Elements, Thing, Think, Thinking

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

Critic, Demand, Enough, Orbit, Point

Those who professed themselves unable to believe in the reality of human progress ought to cheer themselves up, as the students under examination had conceivably been cheered up, by a short study of the Middle Ages. The hydrogen bomb, the South African Government, Chioang Kaidick, Senator McCarthy himself, would then seem a light price to pay for no longer being in the Middle Ages.

Believe, Cheer, Reality, Study, Under

I've been trying to write for as long as I can remember. But those first fifteen years didn't produce much of great interest. I mean, it embarrasses me very much to look back on my early poems--very few lines of any merit at all and lots of affectation. But there were quite a lot of them. That's a point in one's favor.

Back, Favor, Mean, Merit, Writing, Years

Never despise a drink because it is easy to make and
or uses commercial mixes. Unquestioning devotion to authenticity is, in any department of life, a mark of the naive - or worse.

Authenticity, Devotion, Drink, Make, Unquestioning, Use

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

Hammer, Hammers, Man, Men, Thumbs, Young

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

Drink, Life, May, Part, Play, Work

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

Politics, Thing, Unsophisticated

I wish I could have a little tape-and-loudspeaker arrangement sewn into the binding of this magazine, to be triggered off by the light reflected from the reader's eyes on to this part of the page, and set to bawl out at several bels: MORE WILL MEAN WORSE.

Arrangement, Eye, Light, Mean, Set, Triggered

A German wine label is one of the things life's too short for, a daunting testimony to that peculiar nation's love of detail and organization.

Details, German, Love, Organization, Things, Wine

To refer even in passing to unpublished or struggling authors and their problems is to put oneself at some risk, so I will say here and now that any unsolicited manuscripts or typescripts sent to me will be destroyed unread. You must make your way yourself. Why you should be so set on the nearly always disappointing profession is a puzzling question.

Authors, Manuscripts, Question, Risk, Struggle, Writing

Misprize common sense at your peril is my motto.

Common, Common Sense, Misprize, Motto, Peril, Sense

Feeling a tremendous rakehell, and not liking myself much for it, and feeling rather a good chap for not liking myself much for it, and not liking myself at all for feeling rather a good chap.

Chap, Chaps, Feeling, Feelings, Liking, Rakehell

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

Itch, Letting You Go, Love, Sex

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