The process of writing a novel is getting to know more about the novel until you know everything about it. And it's been described as a kind of dreamlike state where you're letting the novel make its own shape, and you're putting into it the pleasure of creation, which is intoxicating. Martin Amis creationdreamlikeintoxicate share on social
Language leads a double life - and so does the novelist. You chat with family and friends, you attend to your correspondence, you consult menus and shopping lists, you observe road signs, and so on. Then you enter your study, where language exists in quite another form - as the stuff of patterned artifice. Martin Amis artificeattendchat share on social
Present-day Spain translates as many books into Spanish, annually, as the Arab world has translated into Arabic in the past 1,100 years. Martin Amis annuallyarabarabic Change image and share on social
Very broadly, literature concerns itself with the internal, cinema with the external. Martin Amis broadlycinemaconcern Change image and share on social
Deciding to write a novel about something - as opposed to finding you are writing a novel around something - sounds to me like a good evocation of writer's block. Martin Amis blockdecideevocation Change image and share on social
It's becoming clearer and clearer to me that the world is there to be celebrated by writers, and in fact this is what all the good ones do, and that the great fashion for gloom and grimness was in fact a false path that certain writers took, I think in response to the horrors of the first half of the twentieth century. Martin Amis celebratecenturyclear share on social
When I go back to the core of my childhood, my cousin Lucy seems always to be in the peripheral vision of my memories. She is off to one side, always off to one side, with a book, with a scheme or a project or an enterprise. Martin Amis backbookchildhood share on social
You cannot combine being a movie star with not being a movie star. Martin Amis combinemoviestar Change image and share on social
I would never write about someone that forced me to write at a lower register than what I can write. Martin Amis forcelowregister Change image and share on social
Every writer hopes or boldly assumes that his life is in some sense exemplary, that the particular will turn out to be universal. Martin Amis assumeboldlyexemplary Change image and share on social