A terrible thing about getting oldish is that your friends start dying, and in the last ten years I have lost seven or eight of my closest.

I'm very gregarious, but I love being in the hills on my own.

However, I learned something. I thought that if the young person, the student, has poetry in him or her, to offer them help is like offering a propeller to a bird.

But I hang on to books. I love them. I even think they're very nice decor in a room - far better than paintings... That's not quite true!

When I go fishing I like to know that there's nobody within five miles of me.

I said I have no powers of invention. Well, I also have no powers of mimicry.

I used to fish the Border rivers, but nowadays you have to queue up for a shot and I can't stand that.

When I was asked to be Writer in Residence at Edinburgh I thought, you can't teach poetry. This is ridiculous.

And the second question, can poetry be taught? I didn't think so.

There are some friends you don't meet for twenty years and when you meet them again it's as if no twenty years has happened - you're lucky when that happens. I feel the same about books.

It's like breathing in and out to me. It's like having a conversation with someone who isn't there. Because it has to be addressed to somebody - not a particular person, or very rarely.

Hey, Rosalie? Do you know how to drown a blonde? Stick a mirror to the bottom of a pool.

Love is easy early on...its when the busyness of life creeps in and felling ebb and flow that real love shines through in small choices.

The ultimate truth is mystical truth, the ultimate reality is sacred chaos.

You learn to run like a sprinter, you'll be a great distance runner

It will be the first time I've played live with a double bass.

Porcupine, whom one must Handle, glove'd, May be Respected, but is never Loved.

Righteous people have no sense of humor.

I was very, very shy as a younger girl, just petrified of people. Tennis helped give me an identity and made me feel like somebody.

If you really think the environment is less important than the economy try holding your breath while you count your money.

Yes, I'm a homosexual and I like to shock people with glamour.