Kenneth Koch

I was influenced by surrealist poetry and painting as were thousands of other people, and it seems to me to have become a part of the way I write, but it's not.

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

I was born in Cincinnati, Ohio. My family was not nationally known as being a literary family, though my mother and my mother's side of the family in general were interested in literature.

I've conducted an experiment on my kids. Instead of denying them access to media, I've encouraged it. They read comic books, play Nintendo and watch way too much TV.

Shaft was a pop culture figure along t he lines of, I guess, Dirty Harry - except that he wasn't as much of a racist. So yeah, I was always a fan.

Be kind and considerate with your criticism... It's just as hard to write a bad book as it is to write a good book.