All my adult life I have been searching for the right adjective to describe my father's peculiarly aggressive comic style. I recently settled on 'defamatory.
Martin AmisWhen success happens to an English writer, he acquires a new typewriter. When success happens to an American writer, he acquires a new life.
Martin AmisLove is an abstract noun, something nebulous. And yet love turns out to be the only part of us that is solid, as the world turns upside down and the screen goes black.
Martin Amiswhen the sky is as grey as this - impeccably grey, a denial, really of the very concept of colour - and the stooped millions lift their heads, it's hard to tell the air from the impurities in our human eyes, as if the sinking climbing paisley curlicues of grit were part of the element itself, rain, spores, tears, film, dirt. Perhaps, at such moments, the sky is no more then the sum of the dirt that lives in our human eyes.
Martin AmisSometimes 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 AmisSaul Bellow says, funny enough, what French think of your work is tremendously important. And it is. It's more than what the Italians, the Spanish, and the Germans think. Somehow it's still got that cultural primacy. I feel that too: to get praised in France is better than to get praised anywhere else.
Martin Amis