The biographer's problem is that he never knows enough. The autobiographer's problem is that he knows too much.

A day spent praising the earth and lamenting man's pollutionist history makes you feel like a superior, sensitive soul.

Happiness is a small and unworthy goal for something as big and fancy as a whole lifetime, and should be taken in small doses.

Ireland really is my problem; the breaking point of the huge suppuration which all British and all European society now is

Kingsley Amis was one of a trio of brilliant comic novelists who made English literature sparkle in the twentieth century.

It is fitting that yesteryear's swashbuckling newspaper reporter has turned into today's solemn young sobersides nursing a glass of watered white wine after a day of toiling over computer databases in a smoke-free, noise-free newsroom.

I've had an unhappy life, thank God.