Clive James Quotes - Page 6

Quotes about:

• How much atonement is enough? The bombing must be allowed as at least part-payment: those of our young people who are concerned about the moral problem posed by the Allied air offensive should at least consider the moral problem that would have been posed if the German civilian population had not suffered at all.

  Clive James

  Peace, War, Air

  Clive James (1985). “Flying Visits”

  4 Copy quote

• In the movies first impressions are everything. Or, to put it less drastically, in the movies there are no later impressions without a first impression, because you will have stopped watching. Sometimes a critic persuades you to give an unpromising-looking movie a chance, but the movie had better convey the impression pretty quickly that the critic might be right.

  Clive James

  Giving, First Impression, Might

  4 Copy quote

• Anyone afraid of what he thinks television does to the world is probably just afraid of the world.

  Clive James

  Wisdom, Thinking, Community

  Clive James (1983). “Glued to the box: television criticism from the Observer, 1979-82”, Jonathan Cape

  4 Copy quote

• I think the great trick of doing my sort of thing is to learn to use your downtime, and of course in the media and especially in television, there's a heck of a lot of time of waiting around. And I think the trick is to use that.

  Clive James

  Thinking, Media, Waiting Around

  "Clive James: life through the prism of illness". "PM" with Mark Colvin, www.abc.net.au. August 21, 2015.

  4 Copy quote

• One way or another, all the poets of the thirties and forties reacted to Auden, either by rejecting him or trying to absorb him.

  Clive James

  Poetry, Trying, Literature

  Clive James (2014). “Poetry Notebook: 2006–2014”, p.130, Pan Macmillan

  4 Copy quote

• The streets, at least in this part of town, seemed impossibly clean in comparison to London. The public telephones were unvandalised. For a London telephone booth to look like that it would have to be guarded around the clock by the SAS.

  Clive James

  America, Looks, World

  Clive James (1985). “Flying Visits”

  4 Copy quote

• In between the Queen and the First Lady, Nancy Reagan, sat Tony Richardson, looking very calm. Later on it emerged that this was because, having not been apprised of the placement until he was about to sit down, he had died of fright. To have expired was to be fortunate.

  Clive James

  Queens, America, World

  Clive James (2013). “Snakecharmers In Texas”, p.187, Pan Macmillan

  4 Copy quote

• A sceptic finds Dallas absurd. A cynic thinks the public doesn't

  Clive James

  Thinking, Dallas, Classic

  Clive James (1983). “Glued to the box: television criticism from the Observer, 1979-82”, Jonathan Cape

  52 Copy quote

• 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

  Moving, Wrecks, Woods

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Funny, Girl, Humorous

  Clive James (2013). “The Complete Unreliable Memoirs”, p.286, Pan Macmillan

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Couple, Reading, Mean

  "Clive James: life through the prism of illness". "PM" with Mark Colvin, www.abc.net.au. August 21, 2015.

  4 Copy quote

• Here was my first lesson on the resolutely maintained untidiness and ill-health of the English upper orders. In baggy evening dress and old before their time, they displayed gapped and tangled teeth in loosely open mouths. Gently shedding dandruff, they lurched across the lawn. When they stood at the bar they looked like Lee Trevino Putting.

  Clive James

  Funny, Humorous, Order

  Clive James (2013). “The Complete Unreliable Memoirs”, p.256, Pan Macmillan

  4 Copy quote

• Young men especially - I don't know if young women feel much the same - but young men think they are immortal, automatically. They have no idea of time because they have so much energy and I was like that.

  Clive James

  Men, Thinking, Ideas

  "Clive James on turning his ‘last time on earth’ into a writing wellspring". Interview with Ellen Rolfes, www.pbs.org. December 3, 2013.

  4 Copy quote

Page 6 of 6

First

← Prev

1

2

3

4

5

6

Next →

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin