Quotes from Lucky Jim

“If you can't annoy somebody, there is little point in writing.”
― Kingsley Amis, quote from Lucky Jim

“Dixon was alive again. Consciousness was upon him before he could get out of the way; not for him the slow, gracious wandering from the halls of sleep, but a summary, forcible ejection. He lay sprawled, too wicked to move, spewed up like a broken spider-crab on the tarry shingle of morning. The light did him harm, but not as much as looking at things did; he resolved, having done it once, never to move his eyeballs again. A dusty thudding in his head made the scene before him beat like a pulse. His mouth had been used as a latrine by some small creature of the night, and then as its mausoleum. During the night, too, he'd somehow been on a cross-country run and then been expertly beaten up by secret police. He felt bad.”
― Kingsley Amis, quote from Lucky Jim

“... all his faces were designed to express rage or loathing. Now that something had happened which really deserved a face, he had none to celebrate it with. As a kind of token, he made his Sex Life in Ancient Rome face.”
― Kingsley Amis, quote from Lucky Jim

“Nice things are nicer than nasty ones.”
― Kingsley Amis, quote from Lucky Jim

“Doing what you wanted to do was the only training, and the only preliminary, needed for doing more of what you wanted to do.”
― Kingsley Amis, quote from Lucky Jim

“You'll find that marriage is a good short cut to the truth. No, not quite that. A way of doubling back to the truth. Another thing you'll find is that the years of illusion aren't those of adolescence, as the grown-ups try to tell us; they're the ones immediately after it, say the middle twenties, the false maturity if you like, when you first get thoroughly embroiled in things and lose your head. Your age, by the way, Jim. That's when you first realize that sex is important to other people besides yourself. A discovery like that can't help knocking you off balance for a time.”
― Kingsley Amis, quote from Lucky Jim

“How wrong people always were when they said: 'It's better to know the worst than go on not knowing either way.' No; they had it exactly the wrong way round. Tell me the truth, doctor, I'd sooner know. But only if the truth is what I want to hear.”
― Kingsley Amis, quote from Lucky Jim

“He thought how much he liked her and had in common with her, and how much she'd like and have in common with him if she only knew him.”
― Kingsley Amis, quote from Lucky Jim

“A dusty thudding in his head made the scene before him beat like a pulse. His mouth had been used as a latrine by some small creature of the night, and then as its mausoleum. During the night, too, he'd somehow been on a cross-country run and then been expertly beaten up by secret police. He felt bad.”
― Kingsley Amis, quote from Lucky Jim

“For the first time he really felt that it was no use trying to save those who fundamentally would rather not be saved.”
― Kingsley Amis, quote from Lucky Jim

“There was no excuse which didn't consist of inexcusable.”
― Kingsley Amis, quote from Lucky Jim

“For a moment he felt like devoting the next ten years to working his way to a position as art critic on purpose to review Bertrand's work unfavorably.”
― Kingsley Amis, quote from Lucky Jim

“Yes. Your attitude measures up to the two requirements of love. You want to go to bed with her and can't, and you don't know her very well. Ignorance of the other person topped up with deprivation, Jim. You fit the formula all right, and what's more you want to go on fitting it. The old hopeless passion, isn't it?”
― Kingsley Amis, quote from Lucky Jim

“Why couldn’t they leave him alone? Why couldn’t every single one of them without exception whatsoever just go right away from where he was and leave him alone?”
― Kingsley Amis, quote from Lucky Jim

“He lay sprawled, too wicked to move, spewed up like a broken spider-crab on the tarry shingle of morning. The light did him harm, but not as much as looking at things did; he resolved, having done it once, never to move his eyeballs again. A dusty thudding in his head made the scene before him beat like a pulse. His mouth had been used as a latrine by some small creature of the night, and then as its mausoleum. During the night, too, he’d somehow been on a cross-country run and then been expertly beaten up by secret police. He felt bad.”
― Kingsley Amis, quote from Lucky Jim

“See that car?’ It was Welch’s, parked slightly nearer one kerb than the other”
― Kingsley Amis, quote from Lucky Jim

“To write things down as luck wasn't the same as writing them off as non-existent or in some way beneath consideration.”
― Kingsley Amis, quote from Lucky Jim

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Popular quotes

“it is well known that if there is anything that makes men thirstier than the acquisition of knowledge it is the full or partial prohibition of drinking.”
― Andrzej Sapkowski, quote from Blood of Elves

“إن العالم العربي، الذي ترونه من باريس، لم يبق منذ عهد محمد علي في مصر محنيا ولا جامدا. لقد انتفض محمد علي ضد الامبراطورية العثمانية والانجليز، تلته انتفاضة دروز سوريا في 1925، التي سحقها جنرالكم غورو، فحرب الجزائر، فالأنتفاضة المغربية وانتفاضة التونسيين التي أجلت كلأ من الفرنسيين والطليان الذين كانوا يتقاسمون خارطة الأمطار الشهيرة، فنهوض الجنرال قاسم بوجه الإنجليز في وشركة نفط العراق في 1958، ولم يدع عبد الناصر ولا حتى القذافي المملكة السنوسية سالمة. إن عالمنا كله انتفض ليتخلص من قمله، لكن لا رحب ولا فعل كان لهما مدى الثورة الفلسطينية”
― Jean Genet, quote from Prisoner of Love

“Yes,” her boss responded, “one for us and one for the customer.” “I’m sorry, so you are saying that the client is asking for a copy and we need a copy for internal use?” “Actually, I’ll check with the client—they haven’t asked for anything. But I definitely want a copy. That’s just how I do business.” “Absolutely,” she responded. “Thanks for checking with the customer. Where would you like to store the in-house copy? There’s no more space in the file room here.” “It’s fine. You can store it anywhere,” he said, slightly perturbed now. “Anywhere?” she mirrored again, with calm concern. When another person’s tone of voice or body language is inconsistent with his words, a good mirror can be particularly useful. In this case, it caused her boss to take a nice, long pause—something he did not often do. My student sat silent. “As a matter of fact, you can put them in my office,” he said, with more composure than he’d had the whole conversation. “I’ll get the new assistant to print it for me after the project is done. For now, just create two digital backups.” A day later her boss emailed and wrote simply, “The two digital backups will be fine.” Not long after, I received an ecstatic email from this student: “I was shocked! I love mirrors! A week of work avoided!” Mirroring will make you feel awkward as heck when you first try it. That’s the only hard part about it; the technique takes a little practice. Once you get the hang of it, though, it’ll become a conversational Swiss Army knife valuable in just about every professional and social setting.”
― Chris Voss, quote from Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It

“as might a dung beetle stripped of its exoskeleton. Having set out to change the world and rule it through mass murder and slavery, he had seemed to act with courage when, at enormous personal risk, he broke laws and trashed two thousand years of philosophical consensus as to the equal value of each human life. But what might have looked like courage proved to be a deficit of common sense and an excess of self-importance, too strong a faith in his genius and superiority—not courage at all, but the rash actions of an ordinary narcissist incapable of imagining that he might fail.”
― Dean Koontz, quote from The Silent Corner

“Abelard had on Wayfarer sunglasses, a dark blue windbreaker over a blue striped shirt, like he was on his way to a casual day of yachting. He looked cool and collected. The very opposite of me.”
― Laura Creedle, quote from The Love Letters of Abelard and Lily

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