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.

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

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.

Well, I love fishing. I wouldn't kill a fly myself but I've no hesitation in killing a fish. A lot of men are like that. No bother. Out you come. Thump. And that's not the only reason.

The grace of service is the spirit of belonging.

Solar power seems to be truly bipartisan in its appeal.

That is the trouble with happiness-all of it is built on top of something that men want.

I've seen death and I didn't like it.

Detachment is what interests me, seeing how people couldn't have been any other way, how they were the product of forces that they had no control over.

I always wished for this, but it's almost turning into more of a nightmare than a dream.

Bodies come and go, ages come and go, yugas come and go, eternities come and go. Selves come and go.

When my son will be born, my first goal will be for him. The rest, will be as always for my grandmother.

Learn the lick, but learn FROM the lick.

and where men build on false grounds, the more they build, the greater is the ruine