Source: Civilisation (1969), Ch. 5: The Hero as Artist
“Few artists were ever fully well, so it is no great trick to prove them ill. There are commentators who can't get interested in Caravaggio until they find out he killed someone. They are only one step from believing that every killer is Caravaggio.”
'Georg Christoph Lichtenberg', p. 395
Essays and reviews, Cultural Amnesia: Notes in the Margin of My Time (2007)
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Clive James 151
Australian author, critic, broadcaster, poet, translator an… 1939–2019Related quotes


On musical influences
Ebony interview (2007)
On Alexander the Great, p. 312
The Persian Boy (1972)
Context: It is better to believe in men too rashly, and regret, than believe too meanly. Men could be more than they are, if they would try for it. He has shown them that. How many have tried, because of him? Not only those I have seen; there will be men to come. Those who look in mankind only for their own littleness, and make them believe in that, kill more than he ever will in all his wars.

In "Painting as a Pastime", the Strand Magazine (December 1921/January 1922), cited in Churchill by Himself (2008), ed. Langworth, PublicAffairs, p. 568 ISBN 1586486381
Early career years (1898–1929)

Juvenal, Satire X (1693), lines 156–159.