Top 100 Koch's Quotes
#1. Koch's youthful idealism about libertarianism had largely devolved into a rationale for corporate self-interest.
John Charles Chasteen
#2. Yeah, I know. It's one of my plans. It'll go all Dog Day Afternoon somewhere along the line. But a girl can dream, can't she?
Gini Koch
#3. It's grand theft auto." "No problem, I'll drive." Jack sighed. "No, let's not add manslaughter, being-slaughter, destruction of public property, and reckless endangerment to the list." He
Gini Koch
#4. There's enormous energy required to carry grudges - enormous energy! And I'm getting too old to expend my energy that way, cause I think every person has a limited amount of energy. So I have given up all grudges.
Ed Koch
#5. It's a lot more fun being a critic than being the one criticized.
Ed Koch
#6. Writers to some extent are childish, and it's at the childish level that one really engages with any experience. What really moves you is at the very personal, childish level of the imagination. My business is the imagination, and my imagination is engaged by Asia.
Christopher Koch
#7. I don't think the nature of my poetry is satirical or even ironic, I think it's essentially lyrical but again I don't know if it's my position to say what my poetry is like.
Kenneth Koch
#8. We lifted up and then bobbed.
"Back! Pull it back!" (Christopher)
"It's hard." (Kitty)
"The ground is harder!" (Christopher)
Gini Koch
#9. I'm not going to say what was wrong with Claire, not here. I consider that a private matter. It's nobody's business what kind of illnesses you've had - in any case it's up to her if she wants to talk about it, and not up to me.
Herman Koch
#10. It's a snake, then.'
'Rattler?'
'Most likely.'
I was taking this extremely well. 'We have to kill it. By we, of course, I mean you. I'll stand here and scream.
Gini Koch
#11. Why I've never been that fond of politics and only got into it recently kicking and screaming, because I don't think politicians are going to reverse the trajectory of this country. I think it's going to depend on the American people understanding what is fair and what makes their lives better.
Charles Koch
#12. There's a great book about that, "The Breaking Point" by Stephen Koch . It won't improve your opinion of [Ernest] Hemingway.
George Packer
#13. The two men looked at each other for a moment. Then Sonja's father nodded. And Ove nodded curtly back. And then they rose to their feet, objective and determined, in the way two men might behave if they had just agreed to go and kill a third man.
Henning Koch
#14. Even when you act like nothing is happening, something happens - I don't know how to put it any more clearly. It's
Herman Koch
#15. A look says more than words alone. That's a cliche, of course. But a cliche, also says more than words alone.
Herman Koch
#16. That's the oppressive thing about happiness, the way everything is out on the table like an open book:
Herman Koch
#17. I contribute to public candidate campaigns, and there's a federal limit on how much you can contribute to each individual candidate. I obey the law in that regard, and I feel like I'm doing it properly.
David H. Koch
#18. Free-ranging single men are like a house that has been empty too long. There must be something fishy about the house, the woman thinks. Up for sale for six months and it's still vacant.
Herman Koch
#19. To end cronyism we must end government's ability to dole out favors and rig the market.
Charles Koch
#20. 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.
Kenneth Koch
#21. I think that every Saturday, we ought to say, 'My father's a Jew, my mother was a Jew, and I'm a Jew,' with great pride.
Ed Koch
#22. There's a nastiness out there that wants to harm me with words. These are my enemies - the ideologues, the populists, the columnists who don't like the fact that I take them on toe-to-toe. What I try to do is tell the truth. It's not the coin of the realm in politics.
Ed Koch
#23. When our bodies are violated by this horrible disease of cancer, we're in total shock because it's so unexpected.
David H. Koch
#24. The chair was Claire's, it belonged to my wife. Without a doubt, he could now feel her body heat, left behind on the seat, right through the cloth of his trousers. The thought of it made me furious.
Herman Koch
#25. When you start attacking cronyism and people's political interests, it gets nasty.
Charles Koch
#26. 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.
Kenneth Koch
#27. I have taken on virtually every element of the big money establishment, whether it's the Koch brothers, and the big energy companies, whether it's the industrial complex, whether it's Wall Street. I have taken on the drug companies. I have taken on the insurance companies.
Bernie Sanders
#28. If I traveled to the end of the rainbow as Dame Fortune did intend, Murphy would be there to tell me the pot's at the other end.
Ed Koch
#29. I'm a bit of a romantic, to a fault. It's led me to some great things and also some sad things. It's made me a better person, to keep a good spirit about dating.
Alexander Koch
#30. My crazy's working a lot better than your sanity.
Gini Koch
#31. Any of the social changes in American history are because people thought there was injustice. We have to show that this corporate welfare and cronyism is unjust - and that it's not only rigging the system so people get wealthy who don't deserve to get wealthy.
Charles Koch
#32. I, your father, order it." "Wow, I guess it's because you killed every sibling of mine before they could walk so you've never dealt with a teenager or anyone older. But, seriously, that 'because I said so' thing doesn't work, pretty much ever.
Gini Koch
#33. Maybe he just looks good compared to the bores he's running against.
Ed Koch
#34. Corporate welfare, I think, is a disaster for this country. It's crippling our economy. It is contributing to a permanent underclass and corrupting the business community.
Charles Koch
#35. Happiness needs nothing but itself; it doesn't have to be validated. Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in it's own way.
Herman Koch
#36. 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.
Kenneth Koch
#37. Facebook and pictures on the Internet have created such a different way of dating. It's not necessarily good because an obsessive quality can develop in people.
Alexander Koch
#38. I hope that's working like we wanted it to."
"It's a plan of yours, Kitty. I'm sure it's going to go haywire somewhere.
Gini Koch
#39. Water, water, everywhere, Atlantic and Pacific. But New York City's got them beat, Our aqua is terrific!
Ed Koch
#40. To be happy you have to fulfill your nature. That's what Aristotle taught so many centuries ago, that the road to happiness isn't to go drink more or consume more. The road to happiness is to fully develop your abilities, and then apply them to do good.
Charles Koch
#41. Anybody who suggests that I run for governor is no friend of mine. It's a terrible position, and besides, it requires living in Albany, which is small-town life at its worst.
Ed Koch
#42. Ed Koch once said that New York City is where immigrants come to audition for America. That's what happened to my parents; that's what happened to me.
Lin-Manuel Miranda
#43. Both my parents were a tremendous influence on me. My father's influence came from - he decided well, probably before we were born that as he put it, 'I'm not going to have any kids who are country club bums.'
Charles Koch
#44. Flippancy. A laughing matter. It's like with funerals. They are, first and foremost, expected to be fun. There is laughter and drinking and bad language. To keep the whole thing from being too bourgeois. A bourgeois funeral is an artist's worst nightmare.
Herman Koch
#45. Best part of my job is fulfillment. When I see that, that we're creating value, that we're helping improve people's lives, and we benefit from it, so it's a system of mutual benefit. Our philosophy's working. That's what turns me on. That's what keeps me going.
Charles Koch
#46. We think a person should do right because it's right, not because their soul will be in eternal jeopardy if they don't toe the line.
Gini Koch
#47. It's not going to help the country to be subsidizing uneconomical forms of energy - whether you call them 'green,' 'renewable' or whatever. In that case, the cure is worse than the disease.
Charles Koch
#48. When I used to teach creative writing, I would tell the students to make their characters want something right away - even if it's only a glass of water. Characters paralyzed by the meaninglessness of modern life still have to drink water from time to time.
Stephen Koch
#49. Also, I liked John Cage's music. I liked it for its craziness, the use of silence, the boldness-anything to get me away from writing about.. I don't know what academic poets write about.
Kenneth Koch
#50. I was on the floor. "Um, a little help?"
Christopher put his hand down. Martini cleared his throat and Christopher's hand retracted.
"I can handle it, thanks."
"There's nothing amorous about pulling someone off the floor," Christopher muttered.
"There is when I do it.
Gini Koch
#51. Clinton has more important things to worry about. He not only risks being destroyed historically, like Afghanistan's Buddha statues; he also could end up going to jail.
Ed Koch
#52. Only a modern army will be able to fight a modern war.
Howard W. Koch
#53. Some people might say it's not smart to be so insecure about what you wear. But that's not how I see it. The stupid woman is the one who thinks she doesn't need any help. What does a man know about things like that? a stupid woman thinks, and proceeds to make the wrong choice.
Herman Koch
#54. You punch me, I punch back. I do not believe it's good for one's self-respect to be a punching bag.
Ed Koch
#55. A lot of the Republican rhetoric better than the Democrats'. But when they're in office, it's pretty much the same thing. It's serving their supporters, it's corporate welfare, it's cronyism which is so destructive, particularly to the disadvantaged.
Charles Koch
#56. Picasso said once when being interviewed that one should not be one's own connoisseur.
Kenneth Koch
#57. No longer in print ... There are sentences, and phrases that, in all their simplicity, say much more than they seem to at first: two months to live, never heard of it, dead on arrival ... For a writer, no longer in print must fall somewhere in that category.
Herman Koch
#58. If I were running against Chuck Schumer. I would take every one of his Sunday press releases - and there are 52 for as many years as he's been there - and I would ask, 'How many of the things he said he was proposing became law?' I doubt many.
Ed Koch
#59. By 2009, [Richard] DeVos's son, Dick and daughter-in-law Betsy were major donors on the Koch lust and facing a $5.2 million civil fine of their own for violating Ohio's campaign-finance laws.
Jane Mayer
#60. If it's December 1941 in Casablanca, what time is it in New York?
Howard E. Koch
#61. I make a rod for my own back because people see my novels as quasi documentaries. But it is never history that's the main event of my books. It's my characters.
Christopher Koch
#62. During a working day, there's nothing I look forward to more than an evening of nothing at all. A meal. A beer or a glass of wine. The evening news on TV. A B movie or a soccer match. A working day like that gets off on the right foot. It's a day with promise.
Herman Koch
#63. I thought Paulie could jump. I know he's not fleet of foot, but at least have some hops. I guess we know who is not going to win a gold glove. I was trying to become a spokesperson for the U.S. Postal Service.
Billy Koch
#64. The successful companies try to keep the new entrants down. Now that's great for a company like ours. We make more money that way because we have less competition and less innovation. But for the country as a whole, it's horrible.
Charles Koch
#65. Even a cup of coffee tastes so much sweeter because you've come once again out of the, literally, out of the edge of death, and that's the condition I suppose that a lot of artists and writers would like to be in.
Christopher Koch
#66. You ever flown something before?" (Christopher)
"I hold the highest score at A.S.U. for Star Wars: Starfighter." (Kitty)
"I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I'm going to regret this." (Christopher)
Gini Koch
#67. Sometimes things come out of your mouth that you regret later on. Or no, not regret. You say something so razor-sharp that the person you say it to carries it around with them for the rest of their life.
Herman Koch
#69. I grew up on Stephen King, reading the books. I love the small town, 1950s feel to it, that nostalgia, and that old America. What happens when something weird starts happening to all these people, something other-worldly, something demonic?
Alexander Koch
#70. The shock of recognition is a moment of excitement that shakes the soul. It may be hard to describe, but like other forms of love, you will know it when you feel it.
Stephen Koch
#71. Oh, sure, they'd insisted I take Washington Wife class after I'd inadvertently insulted the Prime Minster of England, but how could I have known he wasn't willing to admit that the Rolling Stones weren't half the band Aerosmith was and never would be?
Gini Koch
#72. There is no question that I would be the better president. But as for the campaign, are Americans ready for a general election in which both major party candidates are ADD? Quite frankly, it could provide an opening for a third party candidate, maybe someone backed by the evil Koch brothers.
Joe Biden
#73. Deals are my art form. Other people paint beautifully on canvas or write wonderful poetry. I like making deals, preferably big deals. That's how I get my kicks.
Ed Koch
#74. All of our policies are based on whether it will make - enable people to improve their lives or it will make their lives worse.
Charles Koch
#75. The most guileful amongst the reporters are those who appear friendly and smile and seem to be supportive. They are the ones who will seek to gut you on every occasion.
Ed Koch
#76. Subsidies and mandates are just two of the privileges that government can bestow on politically connected friends. Others include grants, loans, tax credits, favorable regulations, bailouts, loan guarantees, targeted tax breaks and no-bid contracts.
Charles Koch
#77. It's like a pistol in a stage play: when someone waves a pistol during the first act, you can bet your bottom dollar that someone will be shot with it before the curtain falls. That's the law of drama. The law that says no pistol must appear if no one's going to fire it.
Herman Koch
#78. Biology is a force to be reckoned with. An ugly child you love with all your heart and soul, you. But it's different. You're pleased with your third-floor walk-up, also, until someone invites you I've to dinner at a house with a pool in the garden.
Herman Koch
#79. I'm with the Naked Ape." Jareen said. "Let's get in there and kick some evil overlord butt.
Gini Koch
#80. I feel a passion for what we're trying to do.I mean, why does somebody who's old who's a writer keep writing? Because that's who they are.
Charles Koch
#81. The trajectory of this country [USA] is not positive and particularly for the disadvantaged, as we see what's happening. The gains in productivity have dropped, the gains in income for the middle class and the least advantaged have slowed, at best.
Charles Koch
#82. The U.S. was the immigration country of choice even for alien jellyfish things that turned humans into scary monsters. It made you proud, really.
Gini Koch
#83. 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.
Kenneth Koch
#84. No, I am not a homosexual. If I were a homosexual, I would hope I would have the courage to say so. What's cruel is that you are forcing me to say I am not a homosexual. This means you are putting homosexuals down. I don't want to do that.
Ed Koch
#85. And you also think we have time to nap?" "Just because all Hell's trying to break loose doesn't mean you shouldn't take care of yourself." "Words to live by," Jack muttered. "Well, let's hope.
Gini Koch
#86. Your wife's willingness to allow a daughter to grow inside her who had, by all laws of probability, a fifty-percent chance of inheriting your face, is something you should view as a compliment. Perhaps the greatest compliment a woman can give a man.
Herman Koch
#87. For business to survive over a long period, it needs to be contributing to society and people's well-being. Otherwise, who's going to want it? Otherwise you end up like Enron or some of these other companies.
Charles Koch
#88. With a fresh start, I hope it'll work out good. I know the whole Fox story and how he came over here and had a great year for them. I'm hoping that's what it'll be - fresh start, new faces, new team, new city. I'm looking forward to getting out there.
Billy Koch
#89. The role of business is to provide products and services that make people's lives better - while using fewer resources - and to act lawfully and with integrity.
Charles Koch
#90. Have you ever lived in the suburbs? It's sterile. It's nothing. It's wasting your life.
Ed Koch
#91. Many of the self-described "political refugees" who come here make stopovers in other countries on their way to the U.S., in places where they would be free to have as many children as they want. But they choose to continue on to the U.S. Why? Because it is more economically attractive.
Ed Koch
#92. It's enormously cheering to get a good review by someone who seems to understand your work.
Kenneth Koch
#93. If you listen to Giuliani, it's like nobody did anything to improve the city except him. I'm not part of the history. Bloomberg's not part of the history. It's like, he did it. He's the only one. That's why he's a little crazy.
Ed Koch
#94. We are not trying to prevent new clean energy businesses from succeeding. Any business that's economical, that can succeed in the marketplace, any form of energy, we're all for. As a matter of fact, we're investing in quite a number of them, ourselves - whether that's ethanol, renewable fuel oil.
Charles Koch
#95. Should we be rewriting history just to make people feel good? That's not history, that's psychiatry.
Ed Koch
#96. It's a well known thing that ordinary perceptions can have a strange aspect when one is travelling.
Kenneth Koch
#97. 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.
Kenneth Koch
#98. At Kayenta we were told that the entire Navajo Indian reservation was dry; you couldn't get a drop of alcohol anywhere. Not with dinner,but also not at the supermarket. "It's like Iran," Caroline said, taking a sip of her Coke. "But right in the middle of America.
Herman Koch
#99. Do I really run like that?" (Kitty)
"Yup," Martini confirmed. "Don't worry, I think it's sexy."
"Thank God. I think I look like a cheetah on drugs.
Gini Koch
#100. As for political poetry, as it's usually defined, it seems there's very little good political poetry.
Kenneth Koch
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