Kingsley Amis Quotes

Sir Kingsley William Amis was an English novelist, poet, critic and teacher. He wrote more than 20 novels, six volumes of poetry, a memoir, short stories, radio and television scripts, and works of social and literary criticism. He is best known for satirical comedies such as Lucky Jim , One Fat Englishman , Ending Up , Jake's Thing and The Old Devils . His biographer, Zachary Leader, called Amis "the finest English comic novelist of the second half of the twentieth century." He is the father of the novelist Martin Amis. In 2008, The Times ranked him ninth on a list of the 50 greatest British writers since 1945. Wikipedia

✵ 16. April 1922 – 22. October 1995  •  Other names Kingslijs Emiss, کینقزلی آمیس, കിങ്‍സ്‍ലി അമിസ്, 킹즐리 에이미스

Works

Lucky Jim

Lucky Jim

Kingsley Amis

Take a Girl Like You

Take a Girl Like You

Kingsley Amis

The Old Devils

The Old Devils

Kingsley Amis

Lucky Jim

Lucky Jim

Kingsley Amis

Take a Girl Like You

Take a Girl Like You

Kingsley Amis

The Old Devils

The Old Devils

Kingsley Amis

Kingsley Amis: 32 quotes2 likes

Famous Kingsley Amis Quotes

“I'll pour you the first one and after that, if you don't have one, it's your own f****** fault. You know where it is.”

Source: Everyday Drinking

“If you can't annoy somebody, there is little point in writing.”

Kingsley Amis book Lucky Jim

Source: Lucky Jim

“Consciousness was upon him before he could get out of the way.”

“There was no end to the ways in which nice things are nicer than nasty ones.”

Kingsley Amis book Lucky Jim

Source: Lucky Jim (1954)

“Death has this much to be said for it:
You don't have to get out of bed for it.
Wherever you happen to be
They bring it to you—free.”

“The rewards for being sane may not be very many, but knowing what's funny is one of them.”

Kingsley Amis Quotes about people

“Nothing divided people more deeply than how they felt about cats.”

Source: Difficulties with Girls (1988), Ch. 19, p. 274

“It was no wonder that people were so horrible when they started life as children.”

One Fat Englishman (1963)

“Oh, I see,' said Jenny. 'But you're just getting these men [New Age gurus] to help you all feel better. I thought when you talked about helping people you meant other people. You know, like the blind.'
'Isn't everybody blind, in one way or another?' asked Wendy.”

Source: Difficulties with Girls (1988), Ch. 11, p. 158

“A great British prime minister once remarked that the people were divided into two nations, the rich and the poor, and in effect that these had no knowledge of each other. One might say the same, perhaps, of those who live in parts of the world where segregation by races is practised. But these barriers, or the reasons for them, belong to a part of our history which is fortunately passing away. There is one barrier, however, which no amount of progress or tolerance or legislation can ever diminish. I'm talking about the barrier between the attractive and the unattractive.”

Kingsley Amis book Take a Girl Like You

Source: Take a Girl Like You (1960), Ch. 17

“You're still the same girl. What people do doesn't change their nature.'
She shook her head. […] 'What they do is their nature,' she said.”

Kingsley Amis book Take a Girl Like You

Patrick Standish and Jenny Bunn in Ch. 27
Take a Girl Like You (1960)

“It’s quite a problem for retired people, I do see. All of a sudden the evening starts starting after breakfast. All those hours with nothing to stay sober for. Or nothing to naturally stay sober during, if you see what I…We used to laugh at Malcolm’s dad, the way he used to mark up the wireless programs in Radio Times in different-coloured pencils. Never caught him listening to any of them but it was an hour taken care of.”

Kingsley Amis book The Old Devils

The Old Devils (1986)

Kingsley Amis Quotes

“… all his faces were designed to express rage or loathing. Now that something had happened which really deserved a face, he had none to celebrate it with. As a kind of token, he made his Sex Life in Ancient Rome face.”

Kingsley Amis book Lucky Jim

Source: Lucky Jim

“You can't screw the rich, something in Ronnie muttered as Miss Quick got off him with quite as much alacrity as she had got on him. You have to let them screw you. Or else you leave out screwing altogether.”

Ronnie Appleyard's thoughts after his first full sex with Simon (Simona) Quick in Ch. 2, p. 81
I Want It Now (1968)

“If there's one word that sums up everything that's gone wrong since the war, it's Workshop. After Youth, that is.”

Kingsley Amis book Jake's Thing

pg. 140
Jake's Thing (1978)

“A bad review may spoil your breakfast, but you shouldn't allow it to spoil your lunch.”

Attributed in Aren't We Due a Royalty Statement? (1993) by Giles Gordon, and The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (1999) by Elizabeth M. Knowles, p. 14

“He was short on the one attribute certain to meet the immediate respect of the rich — i. e. being rich — and must therefore obtrude deterrents against being buggered about.”

Source: I Want It Now (1968), Ch. 2, p. 67

“While he was climbing the litter-strewn steps his left ball gave a sharp twinge, on and off like a light-switch, then again after he had sat down. Nothing. Just one of the aches and pains that come and go. No significance.”

Kingsley Amis book The Old Devils

The Old Devils (1986)

“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.”

"Phoenix Too Frequent" Critique of D. H. Lawrence
What Became of Jane Austen? And Other Questions (1970)

“Man's love is of man's life a thing apart;
Girls aren't like that.”

"A Bookshop Idyll"
Cf. Lord Byron, Don Juan, "Man's love is of man's life a thing apart, / 'Tis woman's whole existence."
A Case of Samples: Poems 1946–1956 (1956)

“There isn't another other sex. (p. 254)”

Kingsley Amis book Stanley and the Women

Stanley and the Women (1984)

“Your attitude measures up to the two requirements of love. You want to go to bed with her and can't, and you don't know her very well. Ignorance of the other person topped up with deprivation, Jim. You fit the formula all right, and what's more you want to go on fitting it.”

Kingsley Amis book Lucky Jim

Lucky Jim (1954)

“Shitty things are always simple. Same as great things. Patrick Standish, in conversation.”

The speaker is Patrick Standish, copyrighting his own witticism.
Source: Difficulties with Girls (1988), Ch. 17, p. 248

“Should you revisit us
Stay a little longer
And get to know the place…
On local life we trust
The resident witness
Not the royal tourist.”

"New Approach Needed", about the Second Coming, (p. 27)
A Look Round the Estate: Poems, 1957–1967 (1968)

“Be glad you're fifty — and
That you got there while things were nice,
In a world worth looking at twice.
So here's wishing you many more years,
But not all that many. Cheers!”

"Ode to Me", (p. 134)
Collected Poems, 1944-1979 (1979)

“Any man in the company of two women is outnumbered four to one however amiable they may be.”

Kingsley Amis book The Old Devils

The Old Devils (1986)

“Friendship includes charity. But there's no charity in sex.”

Kingsley Amis book Take a Girl Like You

Source: Take a Girl Like You (1960), Ch. 17

“More will mean worse.”

Encounter magazine (July 1960) (referring to the proposed expansion of higher education)

“From an outsider's point of view, a naked woman out of doors is either a sun-worshipper or a rape victim; a man in the same state is either a sexual criminal or a plain lunatic.”

Kingsley Amis The Green Man

Maurice Allington in Ch. 2
The Green Man (1969)

“I told myself that I could soon start to relish the state of being alone […], only to find as usual that I was stuck with myself.[…] Two's company, which is bad enough in all conscience, but one's a crowd.”

Kingsley Amis The Green Man

Maurice Allington in Ch. 2
The Green Man (1969)

“You're still the same girl. What people do doesn't change their nature.”

Kingsley Amis book Take a Girl Like You

She shook her head.[…] 'What they do is their nature,' she said.
Patrick Standish and Jenny Bunn in Ch. 27
Take a Girl Like You (1960)

“I was a shit when I met you. I still am in lots of ways. But because of you I've had to give up trying to be a dedicated, full-time shit. I couldn't make it, hadn't the strength of character. Which is a pity in a way, because when you fall back into the ranks of the failed shits or amateur shits or incidental shits you start taking on responsibility for other people.”

Ronnie Appleyard to Simon (Simona) Quick in Ch. 4, p. 254
I Want It Now (1968)

Similar authors

Cesare Pavese photo

Cesare Pavese137

Italian poet, novelist, literary critic, and translator None

Rudyard Kipling photo

Rudyard Kipling200

English short-story writer, poet, and novelist None

Mario Benedetti photo

Mario Benedetti4

Uruguayan journalist, novelist, and poet None

Marcel Proust photo

Marcel Proust41

French novelist, critic, and essayist None

James Joyce photo

James Joyce191

Irish novelist and poet None

John Galsworthy photo

John Galsworthy48

English novelist and playwright None

Samuel Beckett photo

Samuel Beckett122

Irish novelist, playwright, and poet None

Fernando Pessoa photo

Fernando Pessoa288

Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic, translator, publi… None

Christopher Morley photo

Christopher Morley30

American journalist, novelist, essayist and poet None

Guillaume Apollinaire photo

Guillaume Apollinaire28

French poet None