Blake has always been a favorite, the lyrics, not so much the prophetic books, but I suppose Yeats influenced me more as a young poet, and the American, Robert Frost.

Each word bears its weight, so you have to read my poems quite slowly.

Blackbirds are the cellos of the deep farms.

The sea is as near as we come to another world.

A poem might be defined as thinking about feelings - about human feelings and frailties.

I married a young Englishman in Cambridge in 1955 and have lived in Britain every since.

There's no friend like someone who has known you since you were five.

There is far too much literary criticism of the wrong kind. That is why I never could have survived as an academic.

Poets should ignore most criticism and get on with making poetry.

Yes, I do often write poems from the mind, but I hope I don't ignore feelings and emotions.

I like rhyme because it is memorable, I like form because having to work to a pattern gives me original ideas.

What is needed is not the removal of the trouble but the conquest of self.

More than ever, the world needs good engineers. However, the pool of talent is shrinking not growing.

It is not making better people of others that management is about. It's about making a better person of self. Income, power, and titles have nothing to do with that.

In a sense, every form of expression is imposed upon one by social factors, one's own language above all.

Every time I left for the battlefield I promised this to myself; I must live to see you again. In order to protect you, I promised myself that I must win.

We had the camera locked, but not the location of the sun.

While in a vintage restaurant..."the past isn't quaint while you're in it. Only at a safe distance, later, when you see it as decor, not as the shape your life's been squeezed into.

I always thought that pop groups were going to be made up in the 21st century. It wouldn't be four musicians, as such. Especially in the online world, with the worlds that are opening up.

In developing our industrial strategy for the period ahead, we have the benefit of much experience. Almost everything has been tried at least once

I'm writing, I'm using language, I'm using that language to tell stories and even more so to get ideas across. And I just love that, and I've always loved that.