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.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the complexity of familial relationships, particularly how influence can shape perceptions of others.
In this quote, Martin Amis shares his conflicting feelings about his stepmother, Jane. While he acknowledges her positive attributes, such as her generosity and support for his education, he also points out her misguided attempts to undermine his view of his biological mother. This dynamic illustrates the nuanced nature of relationships and the impact that words and actions can have on familial bonds and perceptions.
In practice
In a speech about blended families, one might quote this to highlight the complexities of parental relationships.
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.
Don't dumb down; always write for your top five percent of readers.
It is shaming sometimes how the body will not, or cannot, lie about emotions. Who, for decorum’s sake, has ever slowed his heart, or muted a blush?
Greater things are believed of those who are absent.
I don’t want your candor. I want your soul in a silver thimble.
People are trying to find an outlet to tell their truth.
Basically, men are afraid of women and can’t handle the fact that they came out of the same thing they spend the rest of their lives trying to get back into.
They were governed by private loyalties which they did not question. What mattered were individual relationships, and a completely helpless gesture, an embrace, a tear, a word spoken to a dying man, could have value in itself
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