A biography for John Cooper Clarkehasn’t been written yet.
“I don't go looking for new fads.”
“At the beginning, there was no chance I'd get published so I thought I'd give it a go live. I had to perform in rock band places and working men's clubs, where you wouldn't expect to find poetry. I ploughed a lonely furrow.”
“I'd like to be rich, but without all the downside of fame.”
“I eat like a pig. Tripe is the only thing I won't eat.”
“Fame just ain't a natural situation. But I shouldn't have worried because everyone thought I was a bit famous even before I'd done anything; people just assumed I was famous.”
“Somebody up there likes me. It ain't like I've followed a well trodden trajectory.”
“Being unapologetic means never having to say you're sorry.”
“I don't have secrets, my life's an open book.”
“It amazes me there are movies about writers... such inert, uneventful lives.”
“I've always lived all over the place, and left Manchester the minute I was old enough to steal a car.”
“I enjoy gigging in industrial towns. It seems to be where I go down the best. Somewhere where they have a history of manufacturing, they're my favourite places to play.”
“When I sit down to eat, the greatest spice of all is hunger.”
“I've got a speech impediment.”
“They're very different things, a poem and a song, you wouldn't think they would be, but they are.”
“If there's a gene, I got it from my ma. Her writing has this effortless quality.”
“Dutch food is terrible, I think. What sort of person starts the day with egg and cheese?”
“I was pushing for a career in poetry and of course the received wisdom was that you would never make a living at it.”
“I don't think 'Citizen Kane' stands more than one watch. Power corrupts. Who didn't know that?”
“When you're doing poetry like mine that rhymes, it's very easy to sound like a song that didn't work out!”
“Where's the mileage in an autobiography? Anyone who writes one inevitably casts themselves as a hero, and I'm not about to do that.”