Clive James
Clive James
Clive James AO CBEis an Australian author, critic, broadcaster, poet, translator and memoirist, best known for his autobiographical series Unreliable Memoirs, for his chat shows and documentaries on British television and for his prolific journalism. He has lived and worked in the United Kingdom since 1962...
NationalityAustralian
ProfessionMemoirist
Date of Birth7 October 1939
CountryAustralia
triumph habit
Generally it is our failures that civilize us. Triumph confirms us in our habits.
artist interesting phases
If an artist is any good at all, then he or she will have a later phase that's more interesting than the early one.
eye two miracle
Twin miracles of mascara, her eyes looked like the corpses of two small crows that had crashed into a chalk cliff.
sweet kings humorous
In Italy, for the same price as a typical British hamburger meal including sweet, a builder's labourer could eat like a king - rather better in fact, because pasta dishes gain from being kept simple.
next-week brave wonderful
A lot of my poems are about how ill I am and how I probably won't live beyond next week. I publish a poem and everyone says 'cluck cluck, how wonderful, how brave', but then embarrassingly I'm still here! You see the problem?
hindsight inevitable belittle
The inevitable effect of a biographer's hindsight is to belittle the subject's foresight.
drug style going-out
I was a big pothead for a short period. That was what ticked me off that I shouldn't go near hard drugs, actually, because I would consume the stuff as if it was going out of style and it rapidly occurred to me that if I ever tried a hard drug, the same thing would happen, so I never did.
memorable writing people
I try to be specific. One thought at a time. Clear. Articulate. And above all, memorable, if you can be. You'd like to write phrases that people can't forget as soon as they read them.
funny dog psychopath
They had a... dog called Bluey. A know psychopath, Bluey would attack himself if nothing else was available.
women down-and solo
You can never get a woman to sit down and listen to a drum solo.
play luxury water
A luxury liner is really just a bad play surrounded by water.
stupid men personality
Men never sound more stupid than when they're telling you they're a very complex personality.
vocabulary way language
The Language Laboratory at Cambridge is a very good way of finding out about grammar and the vocabulary and that's why I learned to read German and later on I added Spanish, the standard European languages.
crazy want film
Not everyone who wants to make a film is crazy, but almost everyone who is crazy wants to make a film.