“Probably all writers are at some point briefly under the impression that they are in the forefront of disintegration and chaos, that they are among the first to live and work after things fall apart. The continuity such an impression ignores is a literary continuity.”

— Martin Amis

"Joan Didion" (1980)
The Moronic Inferno and Other Visits to America (1986)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Probably all writers are at some point briefly under the impression that they are in the forefront of disintegration an…" by Martin Amis?

Martin Amis 136

Welsh novelist 1949

Related quotes

“First wonder goes deepest; wonder after that fits in the impression made by the first.”

Yann Martel book Life of Pi

Source: Life of Pi

“You know, when I have a bad game, it continues to humble me and know that, you know, you still have work to do and you still have a lot of people to impress.”

LeBron James (1984) American basketball player

“Growing terrorism, permissive societies, democracy collapsing through lack of law and order. If things continue on their present track, the disintegration of Western societies will occur much sooner than you think under the hammer blows of fascism and communism. Freedom is not something that does not have a breaking point, and your enemies would like you to reach that point.”

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (1919–1980) Shah of Iran

As quoted in Jimmy Carter (1995), Keeping faith: memoirs of a president, page 444
Attributed

“What I am after is the first impression - I want to show all one sees on first entering the room - what my eye takes in at first glance.”

Pierre Bonnard (1867–1947) French painter and printmaker

“There is truth and certainty in our first impressions. First impressions are natural monitors, and nature is a true guide.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

Other Gift Books

“The smallest natural point is larger than all mathematical points, and this is proved because the natural point has continuity, and any thing that is continuous is infinitely divisible; but the mathematical point is indivisible because it has no size.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), II Linear Perspective

“The mind of man can never be wholly barren. Through our whole lives we are subject to successive impressions; for, either new ideas are continually flowing in, or traces of the old ones are marked deeper.”

Joseph Priestley book Institutes of Natural and Revealed Religion

Vol. I : The Dedication (March 1772)
Institutes of Natural and Revealed Religion (1772–1774)
Context: The mind of man can never be wholly barren. Through our whole lives we are subject to successive impressions; for, either new ideas are continually flowing in, or traces of the old ones are marked deeper. If, therefore, you be not acquiring good principles be assured that you are acquiring bad ones; if you be not forming virtuous habits you are, how insensibly soever to yourselves, forming vicious ones…

“To be ignorant of the lives of the most celebrated men of antiquity is to continue in a state of childhood all our days”

Plutarch (46–127) ancient Greek historian and philosopher

“Yes, first impressions do count but every single impression counts.”

Nigel Cumberland (1967) British author and leadership coach

You cannot fake being positive, but you can practise and teach yourself to appear and act in a positive manner.
Source: Your Job-Hunt Ltd – Advice from an Award-Winning Asian Headhunter (2003), p.18

“Among all the world's races, some obscure Bedouin tribes possibly apart, Americans are the most prone to misinformation. This is not the consequence of any special preference for mendacity, although at the higher levels of their public administration that tendency is impressive. It is rather that so much of what they themselves believe is wrong.”

John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) American economist and diplomat

The United States (1971)

“Probably all writers are at some point briefly under the impression that they are in the forefront of disintegration and chaos, that they are among the first to live and work after things fall apart. The continuity such an impression ignores is a literary continuity.”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Martin Amis 136

Related quotes

Related topics