Jonathan Coe Quotes & Sayings

“I'm one of those unlucky people who had a happy childhood.”

“But we are entitled to look for continuity in politics.”

“But you can try to read books at the wrong time or for the wrong reasons.”

“Ah, well, I have no talent for nonfiction, that's my problem.”

“You would go mad if you began to speculate about the impact your novel might have while you were still writing it.”

“But I have always - ever since The Accidental Woman - written novels about individuals attempting to make choices in the context of situations over which they have no control.”

“I live a perfectly happy and comfortable life in Blair's Britain, but I can't work up much affection for the culture we've created for ourselves: it's too cynical, too knowing, too ironic, too empty of real value and meaning.”

“I think it's also the case that I'm not as widely travelled, or as well-educated in history, as most of the other novelists I meet: so I have to write about my own country, at the present time, because it's more or less all I know about!”

“The biggest markets for my books outside the UK are France and Italy, and those are the two countries where I also have the closest personal relationships with my translators - I don't know whether that's a coincidence, or if there's something to be learned from it.”

“As the books grew bigger and more ambitious, the situations in question sometimes became political ones, and so it became necessary to start painting in the social background on a scale which eventually became panoramic.”