Jonathan Coe Quotes

I like the idea of a big caesura between the narratives, a space which readers can fill in with their own speculative history. ~ Jonathan Coe

You didn't take part, Benjamin?" Gunther asked, as he passed me a plate of cheese and cold meat.
"My brother doesn't play games," said Paul. "He's an aesthete. He sat by the window all afternoon with a funny look on his face: probably composing a tone poem. ~ Jonathan Coe

Am I the same person that I dream about? ~ Jonathan Coe

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. ~ Jonathan Coe

Hey - Duggie! Duggie! Duggie!" He came running up to me, sparkler in hand. I felt like sticking one on him, the cheeky bastard. Nobody called me Duggie.
He held the sparkler up in front of my face and said, "Wait. Wait."
I was already waiting. What else was there to do?
"Here you are," he said. "Look! What's this?"
At that precise moment, his sparkler fizzled out. I didn't say anything, so he supplied the answer himself. "The death of the socialist dream," he said.
He giggled like a little maniac, and stared at me for a second or two before running off, and in that time I saw exactly the same thing I'd seen in Stubbs's eyes the day before. The same triumphalism, the same excitement, not because something new was being created, but because something was being destroyed. I thought about Phillip and his stupid rock symphony and I swear that my eyes pricked with tears. This ludicrous attempt to squeeze the history of the countless millennia into half an hour's worth of crappy riffs and chord changes suddenly seemed no more Quixotic than all the things my dad and his colleagues had been working towards for so long. A national health service, free to everyone who needed it. Redistribution of wealth through taxation. Equality of opportunity. Beautiful ideas, Dad, noble aspirations, just as there was the kernel of something beautiful in Philip's musical hodge-podge. But it was never going to happen. If there had ever been a time when it might have happened, t ~ Jonathan Coe

There's a fine line between forgetting an event, and suppressing the memory of it. ~ Jonathan Coe

Well, I thought you might want to listen to this. I mean, I thought you might be . . . ready for it.
"I don't know if you remember, but just before . . . just before Malcolm died, he took me to see a concert in the town. We went to Barbarella's, and we heard all these weird bands. You remember the kind of music he used to like? Well, the people who made this record were playing that night, and they were his favourite. He liked them more than anyone. And I thought that if you heard it, it might remind you . . . might help you to think a bit about the kind of person he was.
"And there's another reason too. You see the title of the record? It's called The Rotters' Club.
"The Rotters' Club: that's us, Lois, isn't it? Do you see? That's what they used to call us, at school. Bent Rotter, and Lowest Rotter. We're The Rotters' Club. You and me. Not Paul. Just you and me.
"I think this record was meant for us, you see. Malcolm never got to hear it, but I think he . . . knows about it, if that doesn't sound too silly. And now it's his gift, to you and me. From - wherever he is.
"I don't know if that makes any sense.
"Anyway.
"I'll just leave it on the table here.
"Have a listen, if you feel like it.
"I've got to go now.
"I've got to go, Lois.
"I've got to go. ~ Jonathan Coe

These days, every politician is a laughing-stock, and the laughter which occasionally used to illuminate the dark corners of the political world with dazzling, unexpected shafts of hilarity has become an unthinking reflex on our part, a tired Pavlovian reaction to situations that are too difficult or too depressing to think about clearly. ~ Jonathan Coe

As soon as you start writing about how human beings interact with each other socially, you're into politics, aren't you? ~ Jonathan Coe

Revisionist historians are about to get their hands on the Thatcher years, shes probably going to be looked at again because she feels far enough away now, and we dont see her much on the political landscape in this country, shes kind of disappeared and she doesnt speak out much anymore. ~ Jonathan Coe

I like the rain before it falls. of course there is no such thing, she said. That's why it's my favorite. Something can still make you happy, can't it, even if it isn't real. ~ Jonathan Coe

As for human contact, I'd lost all appetite for it. Mankind has, as you may have noticed, become very inventive about devising new ways for people to avoid talking to each other and I'd been taking full advantage of the most recent ones. I would always send a text message rather than speak to someone on the phone. Rather than meeting with any of my friends, I would post cheerful, ironically worded status updates on Facebook, to show them all what a busy life I was leading. And presumably people had been enjoying them, because I'd got more than seventy friends on Facebook now, most of them complete strangers. But actual, face-to-face, let's-meet-for-a-coffee-and-catch-up sort of contact? I seemed to have forgotten what that was all about. ~ Jonathan Coe

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. ~ Jonathan Coe

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! ~ Jonathan Coe

Contemporary Britain seems an endlessly fascinating place to me - but if I knew a little bit more about other places, and other times, maybe it wouldn't. ~ Jonathan Coe

Well, I like the rain before it falls. ~ Jonathan Coe

Your gravity, your grace have turned a tide
In me, no lunar power can reverse;
But in your narcoleptic eyes I spied
A sightlessness tonight: or something worse,
A disregard that made me feel unmanned.
Meanwhile, insomniac, I catch my breath
To think I saw my future traced in sand
One afternoon "as still, as carved, as death,"
And pray for an oblivion so deep
It ends in transformation. Only dawn
Can save me, flood this haunted house of sleep
With light, and drown the thoughts that nightly warn:
Another lifetime is the least you'll need, to trace
The guarded secrets of her gravity, her grace. ~ Jonathan Coe

These pieces, he already realised, were merely stepping stones at the start of a journey towards something - some grand artefact, either musical, or literary, or filmic, or perhaps a combination of all three - towards which he knew he was advancing, slowly but with a steady, inexorable tread. Something which would enshrine his feelings for Cicely, and which she would perhaps hear, or read, or see in ten or twenty years' time, and suddenly realize, on her pulse, that it was created for her, intended for her, and that of all the boys who had swarmed around her like so many drones at school, Benjamin had been, without her having the wit to notice it, by far the purest in heart, by far the most gifted and giving. On that day the awareness of all she had missed, all she had lost, would finally break upon her in an instant, and she would weep; weep for her foolishness, and of the love that might have been between them.

Of course, Benjamin could always just have spoken to her, gone up to her in the bus queue and asked her for a date. But this seemed to him, on the whole, the more satisfactory approach. ~ Jonathan Coe

I had no sense of any reputation that What a Carve Up! might acquire - at the time I didnt even have a publisher, so my main worry was whether it was even going to see the light of day or not. ~ Jonathan Coe

I was mainly in a state of nervousness while I wrote it - nervousness that it was far bigger and more complicated than anything Id attempted before, and that maybe my talent just wasnt up to it and the book would have to be abandoned, or would turn out not to work at all when it was finished. ~ Jonathan Coe

But you can try to read books at the wrong time or for the wrong reasons. ~ Jonathan Coe

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. ~ Jonathan Coe

He waited in silence for the blindfold to be tied firmly at the back of his head. 'Right,' said Wilkins, emphatically. 'That should do. How many fingers am I holding up?' 'Three,' said Thomas. 'God damn it to hell, how did you know that? Can you see through the cloth?' 'No. It was a guess.' 'Well you're not supposed to guess. For crying out loud, I'm trying to make sure that you can't see where we're going. We're not here to play guessing games. How many fingers am I holding up?' 'I've no idea. I can't see a bloody thing.' 'Good. It was four, by the way. Not that it matters. Now shut up. ~ Jonathan Coe

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

Jonathan Coe's genial, likeable novel can only be described as a kind of lit-prog-rock concept album ( ... ) Coe recreates the period with such loving accuracy that I frankly suspect him of having planted a secret microphone in the tin Oxford Mathematical Instruments box I carried around in my school days. ( ... ) (A)s always with Jonathan Coe, the sheer intelligent good nature that suffuses his work makes it a pleasure to read. ~ Peter Bradshaw

Luckily, in my case, I have managed, by writing, to do the one thing that I always wanted to do. ~ Jonathan Coe

Half an hour later, as I was deeply immersed in the story of The Man of the Hill, that curious, lengthy digression which seems to have nothing to do with the main narrative but is in fact its cornerstone.. ~ Jonathan Coe

As I said, I had no publisher for What a Carve Up! while I was writing it, so all we had to live off was my wife's money and little bits I was picking up for journalism. ~ Jonathan Coe

Don't you know what a pussy is, sir?'

'Of course he doesn't. He hasn't even seen Basic Instinct. ~ Jonathan Coe

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

Ah, well, I have no talent for nonfiction, that's my problem. ~ Jonathan Coe

But at the same time, I have trouble keeping things out of books, which is why I don't write short stories because they turn into novels. ~ Jonathan Coe

I don't have a deep link with England like, say, Jonathan Coe or Hanif Kureishi might demonstrate. For me, it is like a mythical place. ~ Kazuo Ishiguro

The plain fact is that she never really liked me, and never wanted me. I had been a mistake; and that, to some extent, is what I remain in my own eyes, to this day. The knowledge never goes, can never be undone. You just have to find a way to live with it. ~ Jonathan Coe

Yes - I've learned from my mistakes, and I'm sure I could repeat them perfectly. ~ Jonathan Coe

[ ... ] words are tricky little bastards, and very rarely say what you want them to say [ ... ] ~ Jonathan Coe

We say, 'Shall we meet for a drink?', as though drinking were the main end of the appointment, and the matter of company only incidental, we are so shy about admitting our need for one another.

[...]

We say, 'Would you like to come for some coffee?', as though it were less frightening to acknowledge that we are heavily dependent on mildly stimulating drinks, than to acknowledge that we are at all dependent on the companionship of other people. ~ Jonathan Coe

I'm one of those unlucky people who had a happy childhood. ~ Jonathan Coe

The more melancholy side of my literary personality is much in tune with BS Johnson's. ~ Jonathan Coe

My only regret is that I signed away the world rights and in America they've been far and away my most successful books, but I never saw a cent from any of it. ~ Jonathan Coe

[...] these questions gave way, in the course of time, to a different preoccupation, namely, a slow and growing awareness of familiarity with the landscape into which she was being carried. A familiarity based not on the sighting of particular landmarks, but on her feeling that the very contours of the hills and fields, and the very shapes and colours of the buildings, now appeared as surviving monuments to the existence of a much earlier self whom she had long forgotten. She knew, of course, that they could not bring that self back to life, perish the thought, but they reminded her of it in a way which she did not find disagreeable. ~ Jonathan Coe

Can you make her out at all?'
Benjamin shrugged. As usual, in Cicely's presence, he was afraid of appearing inarticulate, and as usual, this fear robbed him of his power of speech. ~ Jonathan Coe

I don't mind summer rain. In fact I like it. It's my favourite sort.' 'Your favourite sort of rain?' said Thea. I remember that she was frowning, and pondering these words, and then she announced: 'Well, I like the rain before it falls. ~ Jonathan Coe

Yes, she would have been partial to men, perhaps she might even have confined herself to one man in particular, if only she had been able to find one who shared her view that intimacy between two people was of value irrespective of whether it led to sticky conflux. ~ Jonathan Coe

They sat and drank their pints. The tables in which their faces were dimly reflected were dark brown, the darkest brown, the colour of Bournville chocolate. The walls were a lighter brown, the colour of Dairy Milk. The carpet was brown, with little hexagons of a slightly different brown, if you looked closely. The ceiling was meant to be off-white, but was in fact brown, browned by the nicotine smoke of a million unfiltered cigarettes. Most of the cars in the car park were brown, as were most of the clothes worn by the patrons. Nobody in the pub really noticed the predominance of brown, or if they did, thought it worth remarking upon. These were brown times. ~ Jonathan Coe

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. ~ Jonathan Coe

Take It and Like It ~ Jonathan Coe

For many weeks after [my wife] died, I could not get used to the feeling of coldness and lifelessness on her side of the bed - and it was even worse when they took the body away and buried her. ~ Jonathan Coe

There had been no possibility that he had survived. His body had not tumbled into a foaming sea or into a clouded abyss from which he might later make an unexpected return through the good offices of kindly dolphins or giant eagles. Cabal had himself checked that all life was extinguished by searching for a pulse, looking for clouding on a mirror held to the corpse's mouth, and by kicking repeatedly. ~ Jonathan L. Howard

The characters emerge from my rather twisted mind. That's another enjoyable part of the job making stuff up. ~ Jonathan Kellerman

Nothing beats a live performance. Nothing. ~ Jonathan Demme

As she lay awake, she reminded herself that she was beating the depression; she was winning her life back. She had survived, and now she was going to be better than ever before. ~ Jonathan Rottenberg

Whatever fame a novelist my attain, it's always kind of an anonymous one. I can go anywhere, and no one knows who I am ... ~ Jonathan Kellerman

There's profit in law enforcement?" "I was thinking spiritually." - ~ Jonathan Kellerman

In recent weeks it has come to my attention that many caravans have met with disaster; they have not gotten through."
I grunted wisely. "Probably ran out of water. That's the thing about deserts. Dry."
"Indeed. A fascinating analysis. But survivors reaching Hebron report differently: monsters fell upon them in the wastes."
"What, fell upon them in a squashed-them kind of way?"
"More the leaped-out-and-slew-them kind. ( ... ) ~ Jonathan Stroud

It didn't feel difficult at the time because I was so charged up about both books. Afterward, however, I was pretty tired. In a good way, like after a great workout. ~ Jonathan Kellerman

Guns don't kill people. People kill people." "But guns make it so much easier. ~ Jonathan L. Howard

At the heart of all romanticism is suffering ~ Brin-Jonathan Butler

An excuse is a lie guarded. ~ Jonathan Swift

But what do we expect will become of students, successfully cocooned from uncomfortable feelings, once they leave the sanctuary of academe for the boorish badlands of real life? ~ Jonathan Franzen

How can we hope to retain our freedom through the generations if we fail to teach our young that our liberty springs from an abiding faith in our Creator? ~ Jonathan Falwell

In science we kill our hypothesis instead of each other. ~ Jonathan Rauch

How well aware the body was of what it wanted. How quickly it gleaned the news it could use. ~ Jonathan Franzen

Oh my God you're right! What was I thinking? I completely forgot about that. Maybe it went to that building to look at it before it bought it. That being the case I think we should all definitely go straight to First Bank where we can congratulate it on its wonderful taste in architecture." Atalanta said. ~ Jonathan Bergeron

Fear cannot stay in the same house as Jesus Christ. ~ Jack Coe

May you live every day of your life. ~ Jonathan Swift

Even creating shit is hard to do. First, you need money to buy food. Then you have to chew it, eat it, and swallow. A complex process called digestion follows. Finally, you have to strain and excrete your foul smelling wonder into the world. Try doing that with a paint brush! ~ Jonathan Heatt

Hell was something the Lost Girl knew. She has lived it all her life. ~ Jonathan Maberry

Love turned out to be soul-crippling, stomach-turning, weirdly claustrophobic: a sense of endlessness bottled up inside him, endless weight, endless potential, with only the small outlet of a shivering pale girl in a bad rain jacket to escape through. Touching her was the farthest thing from his mind. The impulse was to throw himself at her feet. ~ Jonathan Franzen

Things have been going too well for me lately. I feel like I have some bad karma headed my way." Tamara frowns at me as she leads me toward the dressing rooms. "That's a pretty dire outlook on life," she says. "What's the point in working to be happy if you're going to be constantly looking over your shoulder, wondering when it's time to pay the bill? ~ Jonathan Tropper

The apostle enters upon his subject thus - Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers; for there is no power but of God: the powers that be, are ordained of God. ~ Jonathan Mayhew

The smallest sin is an act of Cosmic Treason against a Holy God. ~ Jonathan Edwards

I tried to think about other things. I tried to invent optimistic inventions. But the pessimistic ones were extremely loud. ~ Jonathan Safran Foer

If Americans had to discriminate directly against other people's children, I believe most citizens would find this morally abhorrent. Denial, in an active sense, of other people's children is, however, rarely necessary in this nation. Inequality is mediated for us by a taxing system that most people do not fully understand and seldom scrutinize. ~ Jonathan Kozol

I've been a huge fan of Hal Ashby forever. And I think that the distinctive thing about 'Coming Home' is the love story, and how - kind of emotionally real it is, and how these two characters allow each other to see their - kind of vulnerabilities. And it's great because it's a love story that's not really that cheesy, either. ~ Jonathan Levine

Edith Wharton did have one potentially redeeming disadvantage: she wasn't pretty. ~ Jonathan Franzen

I know I experience great consolation when my mouth is between a woman's legs. I think it must be because I'm drinking in her happiness. ~ Jonathan Ames

A beautiful product that doesn't work very well is ugly. ~ Jonathan Ive

I would like to direct in the future, but I am in no hurry with that. ~ Jonathan Brandis

Patiently, hopefully, actively we are waiting for Jesus. And yet here is the astonishing twist: As we wait for our Lord and the bodily resurrection yet to come for the departed, the world waits for us. As we long for God, the world is longing for God in us. ~ Jonathan Martin

Because he had been waiting for someone to come back to him, so every time someone knocked on the door, he couldn't stop himself from hoping it might be that person, even though he knew he shouldn't hope. ~ Jonathan Safran Foer

With 'Extinction Machine,' I wanted to start some conversations about whether we're alone in the universe and what that might mean. ~ Jonathan Maberry

Silver is forty-four years old, if you can believe it, out of shape, and depressed - although he doesn't know if you call it depression when you have good reason to be; maybe then you're simply sad, or lonely, or just painfully aware, on a daily basis, of all the things you can never get back. ~ Jonathan Tropper

Certainly in cartooning I'm given huge free rein at the moment. ~ Jonathan Shapiro

Now ministers meet their people in order to enlighten and awaken the consciences of sinners: ~ Jonathan Edwards

A man with no children can easily be lulled into a sense that time is standing still. It's not. It's marching past us, relentlessly. Having a child growing and changing before your eyes makes this unavoidably clear. ~ Jonathan V. Last

The best writing advice I ever got was "Keep moving forward, don't retreat into rewrites." The worst came from a book that said "Writing fiction is like telling lies," which just seems stupid to me. ~ David B. Coe