Clive James Thinking Quotations

Anyone afraid of what he thinks television does to the world is probably just afraid of the world.

I've only got a fraction of the energy I once had, but I think I probably use it better.

It is almost better to be an impulse shirt-buyer than an impulse shoe-buyer. I have worn shirts that made people think I was a retired Mafia hit-man or a Yugoslavian sports convener from Split, but I have worn shoes that made people think I was insane.

Young men especially - I don't know if young women feel much the same - but young men think they are immortal, automatically. They have no idea of time because they have so much energy and I was like that.

Experts say men think of sex every 10 seconds... What do they think of in the other nine?

It is a good rule in life to be wary of the company of people who think of themselves in the third person, no matter how well justified they might seem to be in doing so.

I think the great trick of doing my sort of thing is to learn to use your downtime, and of course in the media and especially in television, there's a heck of a lot of time of waiting around. And I think the trick is to use that.

I love reading about the sea. I love reading about it a lot more than actually being on the sea, when you think about it.

A sceptic finds Dallas absurd. A cynic thinks the public doesn't

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.

The great thing about living until you get a bit older if you are a writer, and especially a poet, is that you have more life to reflect on. And I think that if I am better now - and I think that I am probably better than I was - is because that I simply have more to think about, more to get under control, more to understand.