I love painting and music, of course. I dont know nearly as much about them as I know about poetry. Ive certainly been influenced by fiction. I was overwhelmed by War and Peace when I read it, and I didnt read it until I was in my late 20s. – 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 its not. – Kenneth Koch

I was excited by what my painter friends were doing, and they seemed to be interested in our poetry too, and that was a wonderful little, fizzy sort of world. – Kenneth Koch