Honor the miraculousness of the ordinary.

I don't want my poems to be sentimental, though I do acknowledge that sentiment is probably rather under-reported in a lot of people's feelings a lot of the time.

Each sudden gust of light explains itself as flames, but neither they, nor even bombs redoubled on the hills tonight can quite include me in their fear.

Poems are a hotline to our hearts, and we forget this emotional power at our peril

But Wordsworth is the poet I admire above all others.

I am a vigilant monarchist. I want to see things evolve. The direction the monarchy seems to be moving in - towards a more mainland-European model - is one I would feel sympathetic about.

I write between 5.30am and 9.00. That way, I hope I carry over something from my dream time.

I like eating out. I like buying beautiful paintings and being surrounded by beautiful things. I have to finance that life. I can barely afford a pension scheme because I don't make enough money.

I'm ensuring my place in heaven.

Like a lot of people, for a long time I thought that the road to hell is paved with bad sequels.

But in a lot of ways my poems are very conventional, and it's no big deal for me to write a poem in either free verse or strict form; modern poets can, and do, do both.

Mexico is going to need the United States to cooperate in order to rid itself of the violence and corruption that results from the drug trade.

The software patent problem is not limited to Mono. Software patents affect everyone writing software today.

My parents always raised us with the idea of having college in mind. You sort of need a college education. It's part of life. It's something that you do - like going to your prom.

The Gulf War may not have occurred in the actual global space, but it did occur in global time. And this thanks to CNN and The Pentagon.

We are puzzled and bewildered whenever we see suffering in this world because we have become accustomed to the mercy and the long-suffering of God. Amazing grace is no longer amazing to us.

And strictly forbid that any quarrelling be at your meals.

I was so in love with the idea of making people laugh for a living that I didn't care what I had to do to get there. Or how much money I was going to make when I did get there.

If women could go into your Congress, I think justice would soon be done to the Indians.

For the first time in history, the human species as a whole has gone into politics. Everyone is in the act, and there is no telling what may come of it.

We believe what we want to believe, and once we believe something, it becomes a self-fulfilling truth.