A biography for John Cooper Clarkehasn’t been written yet.
“I wanted to get rich, like anyone from my background.”
“I love the Arctic Monkeys!”
“The first time I heard rock'n'roll on a big sound system would have been at a fairground at the seaside. That's a hell of a sensory experience right there.”
“I write with pen and paper. I don't have a mobile or computer, because I know how great they are. If I did, I'd never leave the house - you'd find me in six months, dead under a pile of pizza boxes.”
“I've been kept from honest employment for a long, long time now. Thank God!”
“No one wants to be a source of anxiety to everybody they know.”
“I love talking about anything, except for myself.”
“My dad was an electrical engineer.”
“I wish I could drive.”
“My look was based on the Madison Avenue guy who's just lost his job. Ivy League suit a bit scuzzed up, an outgrown layer cut and five o'clock shadow.”
“I love being in a car.”
“The '80s were a lost decade.”
“Poets are supposed to be underappreciated, don't you know? There is always a strange reaction to those who become successful in their own lifetime, and so I always felt lucky that I made the living I did out of it.”
“I'm dead fussy about food: I don't eat junk.”
“My trouser needs are simple: a narrow leg in a dark colour, with jean detailing.”
“My favourite writers are columnists.”
“The greatest threat to any artist is surrounding themselves with people who love everything they do.”
“If you want to know why the coast is such an inspirational place, ask Herman Melville, Jack London, Nordhoff and Hall, Robert Louis Stevenson or Joseph Conrad. It's a glimpse of eternity. It invites rumination, the relentless whisper of the tide against the shore.”
“A much underrated garment, the jegging: they never need ironing and they hold their colour.”
“I had TB as a boy. They said my skeletal frame never developed properly.”