Jonathan Coe

Novelist

1961-08-19

Quotes by Jonathan Coe

• I have two ideas for novels at the moment, neither of them all that conventional, but I'm not ready to choose between them yet, let alone settle down to the process of writing.

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

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• They were written in the early '90s when I was strapped for cash.

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• 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.

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• It's only a drawback in the States, where most people seem to have no real interest in other countries and the notion of a novel which might offer insight into life in the UK doesn't seem to appeal very widely.

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

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• 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!

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• I became quite taken over by Johnson's personality at some points while writing the biography, and since I went straight on to The Closed Circle afterwards, I did sometimes feel I could hear him whispering in my ear while I was working on it.

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

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