And quite right too. Thinking back, actually, 'self-infatuation' strikes me as a rather ill-chosen word. It isn't so much that I like or love myself.… - Martin Amis

"Nuclear weapons could bring about the Book of Revelation in a matter of hours; they could do it today. Of course, no dead will rise; nothing will be revealed (nothing meaning two things, the absence of everything and a thing called nothing). Events that we call "acts of God" — floods, earthquakes, eruptions — are flesh wounds compared to the human act of nuclear war: a million Hiroshimas. Like God, nuclear weapons are free creations of the human mind. Unlike God, nuclear weapons are real. And they are here."

He awoke at six, as usual. He needed no alarm clock. He was already comprehensively alarmed.

Iron John, a short work of psychological, literary and anthropological speculation by the poet Robert Bly, dominated the New York Times best-seller list for nearly a year and made, as we shall see, a significant impact on many aspects of American life. In England, it made no impression whatever. ... We are British over in Britain, we are skeptical, ironical, et cetera, and are not given, as Americans are, to seeking expert advice on basic matters. Especially such matters as our manhood. In England, maleness itself has become an embarrassment: male consciousness, male pride, male rage, we don't want to hear about.