Sometimes I feel that I am destined always to be offstage whenever the main action occurs. That God has made me the victim of some cosmic practical joke, by assigning me little more than a walk-on part in my own… — Jonathan Coe Copy Share Image
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. — Jonathan Coe Copy Share Image
I was going to say 'my friend Stuart', but I suppose he's not a friend any more. I seem to have lost a number… — Jonathan Coe Copy Share Image
“The upshot was that she lost her religion - with a vengeance - and walked out on him, taking these three daughters with her.… — Jonathan Coe Copy Share Image
The plain fact is that she never really liked me, and never wanted me. I had been a mistake; and that, to some extent,… — Jonathan Coe Copy Share Image
“Yes, she would have been partial to men, perhaps she might even have confined herself to one man in particular, if only she had… — Jonathan Coe Copy Share Image
“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… — Jonathan Coe Copy Share Image
As soon as you start writing about how human beings interact with each other socially, you're into politics, aren't you? — Jonathan Coe Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
The more melancholy side of my literary personality is much in tune with BS Johnson's. — Jonathan Coe Copy Share Image
I had no sense of any reputation that What a Carve Up! might acquire - at the time I didnt even have a publisher,… — Jonathan Coe Copy Share Image
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… — Jonathan Coe Copy Share Image
