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
funny dog psychopath
They had a... dog called Bluey. A know psychopath, Bluey would attack himself if nothing else was available.
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.
hindsight inevitable belittle
The inevitable effect of a biographer's hindsight is to belittle the subject's foresight.
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?
las-vegas people documentaries
The thing about making a documentary in Las Vegas is there isn't much to film apart from other people making documentaries about Las Vegas.
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.
writing thinking want
It's a big thing to call yourself a poet. All I can say is that I have always written poems. I don't think I'm interested in any discussion about whether I'm a good poet, a bad poet or a great poet. But I am sure, I want to write great poems. I think every poet should want that.
eye two miracle
Twin miracles of mascara, her eyes looked like the corpses of two small crows that had crashed into a chalk cliff.
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.
triumph habit
Generally it is our failures that civilize us. Triumph confirms us in our habits.
reading school glamour
Ban poetry. And make sure that anyone caught reading it is expelled from school. Then it will acquire the glamour.
writing prose-and-poetry formulas
Writers quite often starve. And I'm mainly just writing critical prose and poetry, that's a formula for starvation.
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.
position reasoning
There is no reasoning someone out of a position he has not reasoned himself into.