Explore Quotes by Kenneth Koch

Politics is there the way men and women are there, the way the Atlantic Ocean is there. Sometimes I've written about politics specifically, I mean about politics as it's understood on television and in newspapers.

I'm a writer who likes to be influenced.

I've had trouble with criticism, I guess. It's hard to know what role criticism plays in either encouraging poets or in getting other people to read them.

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.

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.

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

The subject matter of the stories on the surface... there seem to be a number of stories about travel.

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.