Kenneth Koch Quotes

Quotes about:

• You aren't just the age you are. You are all the ages you ever have been!

  Kenneth Koch

  Age, Has Beens

  48 Copy quote

• If you want to know how much I love and care for you, count the waves.

  Kenneth Koch

  Love, Care, Want

  5 Copy quote

• I thought, 'There are a lot of poets who have the courage to look into the abyss, but there are very few who have the courage to look happiness in the face and write about it,' which is what I wanted to be able to do.

  Kenneth Koch

  Writing, Looks, Able

  10 Copy quote

• I'm a writer who likes to be influenced.

  Kenneth Koch

  Likes

  15 Copy quote

• When you get an idea, go and write. Don't waste it in conversation.

  Kenneth Koch

  Writing, Ideas, Waste

  4 Copy quote

• One day the Nouns were clustered in the street.
  An Adjective walked by, with her dark beauty.
  The Nouns were struck, moved, changed.
  The next day a Verb drove up, and created the Sentence.

  Kenneth Koch

  Dark, Next Day, One Day

  Kenneth Koch (2012). “On the Great Atlantic Rainway: Selected Poems 1950-1988”, p.75, Knopf

  5 Copy quote

• Poetry is a deliberate attempt to make language suggestive and imprecise.

  Kenneth Koch

  Language, Poetry Is, Deliberate

  7 Copy quote

• Poetry, which is written while no one is looking, is meant to be looked at for all time.

  Kenneth Koch

  All Time, Written, Meant To Be

  Kenneth Koch (2012). “The Collected Poems of Kenneth Koch”, p.542, Knopf

  5 Copy quote

• It seems everything is so full of possibilities one can hardly take it all in.

  Kenneth Koch

  Possibility, Seems

  5 Copy quote

• Picasso said once when being interviewed that one should not be one's own connoisseur.

  Kenneth Koch

  Should, Said, Connoisseur

  9 Copy quote

• Summer in the trees! “It is time to strangle several bad poets.

  Kenneth Koch

  Summer, Tree, Poet

  Kenneth Koch (2012). “On the Great Atlantic Rainway: Selected Poems 1950-1988”, p.71, Knopf

  8 Copy quote

• All poetry comes from repetition.

  Kenneth Koch

  Repetition

  5 Copy quote

• This rose became a bandanna, which became a house, which became infused with all passion, which became a hideaway, which became yes I would like to have dinner, which became hands, which became lands, shores, beaches, natives on the stones, staring and wild beasts in the trees, chasing the hats of lost hunters, and all this deserves a tone.

  Kenneth Koch

  Beach, Passion, Hands

  Kenneth Koch (1982). “Days and nights”, Random House (NY)

  4 Copy quote

• When you finish a poem, it clicks shut like the top of a jewel box, but prose is endless. I haven't experienced an awful lot of clicking shut!

  Kenneth Koch

  Jewels, Awful, Boxes

  8 Copy quote

• I don't think the nature of my poetry is satirical or even ironic, I think it's essentially lyrical but again I don't know if it's my position to say what my poetry is like.

  Kenneth Koch

  Thinking, Ironic, Lyrical

  5 Copy quote

• It's a well known thing that ordinary perceptions can have a strange aspect when one is travelling.

  Kenneth Koch

  Journey, Perception, Ordinary

  5 Copy quote

• It takes a long time to publish a book.

  Kenneth Koch

  Book, Long, Long Time

  5 Copy quote

• I love painting and music, of course. I don't know nearly as much about them as I know about poetry. I've certainly been influenced by fiction. I was overwhelmed by War and Peace when I read it, and I didn't read it until I was in my late 20s.

  Kenneth Koch

  Love, Peace, War

  4 Copy quote

• I never thought of myself as a New York poet or as an American poet.

  Kenneth Koch

  New York, Poetic, Poet

  5 Copy quote

• As for political poetry, as it's usually defined, it seems there's very little good political poetry.

  Kenneth Koch

  Political, Littles, Defined

  16 Copy quote

• You can't be too influenced by a great poet. You simply have to live through it.

  Kenneth Koch

  Poet, Great Poet

  5 Copy quote

• As I look over my work, I mean every time I look over my early work, I see, yes, I could do that then and then I could do that and that... That may be the hardest thing for a writer, at least for a poet, to tell what the identity of his work is.

  Kenneth Koch

  Mean, Identity, Looks

  4 Copy quote

• Certainly, it seems true enough that there's a good deal of irony in the world... I mean, if you live in a world full of politicians and advertising, there's obviously a lot of deception.

  Kenneth Koch

  Mean, Hype, Deception

  8 Copy quote

• I got married, other people went off. We had sort of another public-we were our entire readership for many years, and we were very excited by each other.

  Kenneth Koch

  Years, People, Married

  7 Copy quote

• Maybe there are three or four really good poets in a generation.

  Kenneth Koch

  Three, Generations, Four

  7 Copy quote

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