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"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."
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"The condition you're in at this moment is the product of your previous thoughts, to change your condition, change your thoughts."
Personal Development
"Life becomes difficult when out of sync with your heart-felt desires."
"The worst enemy of life, freedom and the common decencies is total anarchy; their second worst enemy is total efficiency."
"To get matured, you must have an education in the School of Solitude!"
"Happiness is not defined by how much money you possess."
"If you want people to enter your world, you don't need to invite them; just keep your door open and keep your thoughts plain!"
Explore more quotes by Jonathan Coe
"The writer I feel the most affinity with - you said you felt my books are 19th century novels, I think they're 18th century novels - is Fielding, Henry Fielding, he's the guy who does it for me."
"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."
"As soon as you start writing about how human beings interact with each other socially, you're into politics, aren't you?"
"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."
"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."
"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!"
"The biggest markets for my books outside the UK are France and Italy, and those are the two countries where I also have the closest personal relationships with my translators - I don't know whether that's a coincidence, or if there's something to be learned from it."
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