Bloody Christmas, here again, let us raise a loving cup, peace on earth, goodwill to men, and make them do the washing up.

Write to amuse? What an appalling suggestion! I write to make people anxious and miserable and to worsen their indigestion.

Some socks are loners They can't live in pairs.

When a poem doesn't work, the first question to ask yourself is, 'Am I telling the truth?'

I have a theory that if you've got the kind of parents who want to send you to boarding school, you're probably better off at boarding school.

The reason modern poetry is difficult is so that the poet's wife cannot understand it.

Bloody men are like bloody buses - you wait for about a year and as soon as one approaches your stop two or three others appear.

I like buying clothes, especially as I get a tax-deductible allowance.

The interesting thing is that you don't often meet a poet who doesn't have a sense of humour, and some of them do keep it out of their poems because they're afraid of being seen as light versifiers.

I was single for a long time and felt very much alone in the world, and talk of family values upset me very much at that phase in my life, because I used to think: 'What about people like me?

I think it's a question which particularly arises over women writers: whether it's better to have a happy life or a good supply of tragic plots.

She had gills while other people were breathing with lungs. There was, however, no point in dwelling on it, as it was too later to grow up differently.

When the last tree has been cut down, the last fish caught, the last river poisoned, only then will we realize that one cannot eat money.

My influences were mostly gospel. So I was playing my twisted Jewish equivalent of gospel music over his twisted equivalent of rock and roll music. And it was a very excellent marriage.

Parents have to really talk to their children before they leave home.

A dark-skinned human with four arms walks toward me across the floor of the club, clad only in a belt strung with human skulls.

Don't let life randomly kick you into the adult you don't want to become

We have to get back down to basics. We have to start organizing at the neighborhood level to get people educated to vote.

If you consider it valuable, it will grow valuable.

If all Europe lies flat while the Russian mob tramps over it, we will then be faced with a war under difficult circumstances, and with a very good chance of losing it.

I'm never in the mood to eat or drink when I get to a show. I'm just too nerved out.