Christopher Koch Quotes

The unseen world is what emanates from God.

Basically, it comes down to this: do you believe in God, or don't you believe in God.

I don't have doctrinaire views about how we should relate to Asia. But novelists reflect the world they live in, and that world propels you, to some extent. I'm a creature of the British Empire, and of the period of transition from the Empire.

Poetry was the first step, and from the age of 18, there was nothing else I wanted to do.

I do believe in God.

I've known several spies who have wanted to become novelists. And novelists who became spies, of course.

Writers to some extent are childish, and it's at the childish level that one really engages with any experience. What really moves you is at the very personal, childish level of the imagination. My business is the imagination, and my imagination is engaged by Asia.

I don't believe novels should carry an obvious message. I don't want to write characters you can immediately say are good or bad; as in life, most people are a mixture.

I've never set a book in Europe. I've lived in Europe three times, but somehow or other it wasn't the experience that engaged me in that way.

I think the greatest reward you get as a writer is finding that people who are reasonably receptive and intelligent have liked your book.

I was completely devoted to reading and books from the age of seven. It took until I was 18 to have the confidence to write poetry.