It is only when they go wrong that machines remind you how powerful they are. Clive James
The literary critic, or the critic of any other specific form of artistic expression, may detach himself from the world for as long as the work of art he is contemplating appears to do the same. Clive James
All television ever did was shrink the demand for ordinary movies. The demand for extraordinary movies increased. If any one thing is wrong with the movie industry today, it is the unrelenting effort to astonish. Clive James
Anyone afraid of what he thinks television does to the world is probably just afraid of the world. Clive James
As far as talent goes, Marilyn Monroe was so minimally gifted as to be almost unemployable, and anyone who holds to the opinion that she was a great natural comic identifies himself immediately as a dunce. Clive James
She was good at playing abstract confusion in the same way that a midget is good at being short. Clive James (on Marilyn Monroe)
Disco dancing is…just the steady thump of a giant moron knocking in an endless nail. Clive James