I say, 'If I had a serious brain injury I might well write a children's book', but otherwise the idea of being conscious of who you're directing the story to is anathema to me, because, in my view, fiction is freedom and any restraints on that are intolerable.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of creative freedom in storytelling without restriction.
In this quote, Martin Amis expresses his belief that fiction should be a realm of freedom where the author can explore their imagination without being constrained by the audience's expectations. He suggests that being overly aware of who the story is meant for could stifle creativity and diminish the true essence of storytelling, which is to allow one's thoughts and ideas to flow freely.
In practice
This quote could be used in a workshop on creative writing to inspire writers to embrace their freedom.
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.
The mad is either insane or he is composing verses.
Of all man's works of art, a cathedral is greatest. A vast and majestic tree is greater than that.
A good picture is equivalent to a good deed.
There are two kinds of writers; the great ones who can give you truths, and the lessor ones, who can only give you themselves.
A work of art when placed in a gallery loses its charge, and becomes a portable object or surface disengaged from the outside world.
I get unhappy doing things that I'm not passionate about. Because I feel like I'm squandering this incredible gift I've been given to finance films. As soon as my name alone was enough to make this happen, I vowed to myself that I was going to work with directors who were changing cinema, doing something important, you know?
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