I feel much safer faced with a blank sheet of paper than I do with a real person.

There's the space that you soar into, the space that you sometimes break through to, and hang in. A sort of gasp or gap.

If I knew how to say it directly, I would not need to write poetry. I would just talk to people and be happy.

All I do and say and think 'as a poet' is much truer and more intimate than anything I say face to face.

I like to think that I'm giving a voice to the silenced.

An audience sabotages my freedom, devastates my innocence, corrupts my integrity, inhibits my great joy - and of course gives me further to fall.

Poetry is a big space and I love it.

When I was first published it was like having people rushing in coming to find out where I was hiding. Scary!

Being a poet is like having an invisible partner. It isn't easy. But you can't live without it either. Talent is only 10 per cent. The rest is obsession.

I'm not so sure that the value of art is all it is cracked up to be.

He couldn’t grab reality if he attempted the task with both hands.

Alone.Yes, that's the key word, the most awful word in the English tongue. Murder doesn't hold a candle to it and hell is only a poor synonym.

We almost need another word for fairy, that's the thing. Once people get to see what fairies' real power is, then they understand.

Why do I regret Chelsea? I'm the boss of the richest club in the world. I have not had much time to adjust myself, but I've found a great restaurant! That is the first thing I did when I arrived!

Moths, and all sorts of ugly creatures, hover about a lighted candle. Can the candle help it?

An evil deed, like fresh milk, does not go bad suddenly. Smouldering, like fire covered by ashes, the evil deed follows the fool.

I have never admitted the right of an elderly author to alter the work of a young author, even when the young author happens to be his former self.

Squeeze human nature into the straitjacket of criminal justice and crime will appear.

If I fail to spend two hours in prayer each morning, the devil gets the victory through the day. I have so much business I cannot get on without spending three hours daily in prayer.

As creators, our pursuit of perfection might be misguided, particularly if it comes at the expense of the things that matter.