Quote

Reading and writing... are exciting. The most exciting things I can think of. And now, as I reflect... I have to say that I've been lucky in that I'm amused by what I do - sufficiently amused.

Clive James

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Clive James
Age: 80 †
Born: 1939
Born: October 7
Died: 2019
Died: November 24
Author
Broadcaster
Literary Critic
Poet
Television Presenter
Writer
Kogarah
New South Wales
Australia
Clive Vivian Leopold James
Clive Vivian James
Art
Writing
Things
Amused
Think
Sufficiently
Thinking
Reflect
Exciting
Lucky
Reading

More quotes by Clive James

Image
Television is simultaneously blamed, often by the same people, for worsening the world and for being powerless to change it.
Clive James
Image
Even in moments of tranquility, Murray Walker sounds like a man whose trousers are on fire.
Clive James
Image
I actually didn't like that feeling of being out of touch because what I do depends on being in touch. But it's fun to talk about. That's one of the real dangers of drugs: they're too much fun to talk about.
Clive James
Image
Anyone afraid of what he thinks television does to the world is probably just afraid of the world.
Clive James
Image
First-rate science fiction was, and remains, more interesting than second-rate art.
Clive James
Image
The key to effective teaching is to remember how you learned.
Clive James
Image
Dinner was meat - not hunks of meat, as in Australia, but pathetic scraps of meat, as in Britain - which the girls upstairs transformed into edible dishes by heating it in secret ways and adding bits of stuff to it.
Clive James
Image
The great thing about living until you get a bit older if you are a writer, and especially a poet, is that you have more life to reflect on. And I think that if I am better now - and I think that I am probably better than I was - is because that I simply have more to think about, more to get under control, more to understand.
Clive James
Image
My niece is - her name is Sasha, is currently learning Russian at Melbourne University and I look forward to the day when I can talk to her about Pushkin.
Clive James
Image
You can't be young always. The day will come when everything will fall apart.
Clive James
Image
The thing about making a documentary in Las Vegas is there isn't much to film apart from other people making documentaries about Las Vegas.
Clive James
Image
Snooker is just chess with balls.
Clive James
Image
All intellectual tendencies are corrupted when they consort with power.
Clive James
Image
Perhaps I should have pointed out more often that without her (mother's) guidance and example I might have gone straight from short pants to Long Bay Gaol, which in those days was still in use and heavily populated by larcenous young men who had chosen their parents less wisely.
Clive James
Image
Generally it is our failures that civilize us. Triumph confirms us in our habits.
Clive James
Image
Beyoncé and pathos are strangers. Amy Winehouse and pathos are flatmates, and you should see the kitchen.
Clive James
Image
My wife and I just started listening to the late Beethoven Quartets together, an activity I recommend for all married couples, but that doesn't really mean that I'm finished reading.
Clive James
Image
John McEnroe looks as if he is serving round the edge of an imaginary building.
Clive James
Image
The smartest move I ever made in showbusiness was to start off looking like the kind of wreck I would end up as. I was already aged in the wood.
Clive James
Image
Arnold Schwarzenegger looks like a brown condom full of walnuts.
Clive James