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Quotes from Unreliable Memoirs — Clive James

1939–2019 Australia

← All quotes by Clive James

8 quotes

Rilke used to say that no poet would mind going to gaol, since he would at least have time to explore the treasure house of his memory. In many respects Rilke was a prick.

Unreliable Memoirs (1980)

Most first novels are disguised autobiographies. This autobiography is a disguised novel.

Unreliable Memoirs (1980)

Pulsing like a beacon through the days and nights, the birthplace of the fortunate sends out its invisible waves of recollection. It always has and it always will, until even the last of us come home.

Unreliable Memoirs (1980)

Herzen was closer to the truth when he said that every memory calls up a dozen others. The real miracle of Proust is the discipline with which he stemmed the flow. Everything is a Madeleine.

Unreliable Memoirs (1980)

I was born in 1939. The other big event of that year was the outbreak of the Second World War, but for the moment that did not affect me.

Unreliable Memoirs (1980)

I remember the shock of seeing Ray undressed. He looked as if he had a squirrel hanging there. I had an acorn.

Unreliable Memoirs (1980)

It often happens that we are most touched by what we are least capable of. Evanescent delicacy is not the quality in the arts that I admire most, but it is often the characteristic by which I am most reduced to envy.

Unreliable Memoirs (1980)

My mother had naturally spiced the pudding with sixpences and threepenny bits, called zacs and trays respectively. Grandpa had collected one of these in the oesophagus. He gave a protracted, strangled gurgle which for a long time we all took to be the beginning of some anecdote.

Unreliable Memoirs (1980)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Clive James (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.