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Quotes from Political Correctness: Robert Bly and Philip Larkin — Martin Amis

1949–2023 England

← All quotes by Martin Amis

8 quotes

People don't change or improve much, but they do evolve. It is very slow.

Political Correctness: Robert Bly and Philip Larkin (1997)

One wonders how the literary revisionists and canon cleansers can bear to take the money. Imagine a school of sixteenth century art criticism that spent its time contently jeering at the past for not knowing about perspective.

Political Correctness: Robert Bly and Philip Larkin (1997)

I think enlightenment is incremental, and I see it in my children.

Political Correctness: Robert Bly and Philip Larkin (1997)

They can't ban or burn Larkin's books. What they can embark on is the more genteel process of literary demotion.

Political Correctness: Robert Bly and Philip Larkin (1997)

His indivisibility judges their hedging and trimming. His honesty judges their watchfulness.

Political Correctness: Robert Bly and Philip Larkin (1997)

What we eventually run up against are the forces of humourlessness, and let me assure you that the humourless as a bunch don't just not know what's funny, they don't know what's serious. They have no common sense, either, and shouldn't be trusted with anything.

Political Correctness: Robert Bly and Philip Larkin (1997)

Just as a Philistine does not on the whole devote his life to his art, so a misogynist does not devote his inner life to women. Larkin's men friends devolved into pen-pals. Such intimacies as he shared, he shared with women.

Political Correctness: Robert Bly and Philip Larkin (1997)

Is there any good reason why we cannot extend our multi-cultural generosity to include another dimension? That of time. The past, too, is another country. Its ghosts may look strange and frightening and slightly misshapen in body and mind, but all the more reason then, to welcome them to our shores.

Political Correctness: Robert Bly and Philip Larkin (1997)

Attribution

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