The middle class is doing fine in fiction. But it's not what gets me going. I love the working class, and everyone from it I've met, and think they're incredibly witty, inventive - there's a lot of poetry there.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes a deep appreciation for the working class and their creativity.
Martin Amis expresses admiration for the working class, highlighting their intelligence, inventiveness, and poetic qualities. He contrasts the idealized representation of the middle class in literature with the real-life experiences and characteristics of the working class, suggesting a profound connection and respect for their contributions to society.
In practice
Use this quote in a speech advocating for workers' rights.
Oh Christ, the exhaustion of not knowing anything. It's so tiring and hard on the nerves. It really takes it out of you, not knowing anything. You're given comedy and miss all the jokes. Every hour you get weaker. Sometimes, as I sit alone in my flat in London and stare at the window, I think how dismal it is, how heavy, to watch the rain and not know why it falls.
Sometimes I feel that life is passing me by, not slowly either, but with ropes of steam and spark - spattered wheels and a hoarse roar of power or terror. It's passing, yet I'm the one who's doing all the moving.
You know how it is when two souls meet in a burst of ecstatic volubility, with hearts tickling to hear and to tell, to know everything, to reveal everything, the shared reverence for the other's otherness, a feeling of solitude radiantly snapped by full *contact* - all that?
All my adult life I have been searching for the right adjective to describe my father's peculiarly aggressive comic style. I recently settled on 'defamatory.'
Love is an abstract noun, something nebulous. And yet love turns out to be the only part of us that is solid, as the world turns upside down and the screen goes black.
Jane was my wicked stepmother: she was generous, affectionate and resourceful; she salvaged my schooling and I owe her an unknowable debt for that. One flaw: sometimes, early on, she would tell me things designed to make me think less of my mother, and I would wave her away, saying, Jane, this just backfires and makes me think less of you.
Private property is one of the best institutions which has ever evolved, to protect us from the bullying of others.
Hate is too great a burden to bear. It injures the hater more than it injures the hated.
I've always rejected being understood. To be understood is to prostitute oneself. I prefer to be taken seriously for what I'm not, remaining humanly unknown, with naturalness and all due respect
The swiftness of time is infinite, as is still more evident when we look back on the past.
Poverty is not socialism. To be rich is glorious.
Memories are dangerous things. You turn them over and over, until you know every touch and corner, but still you'll find an edge to cut you.
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