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.

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.

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

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

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.

It was the meanest moment of eternity.

I think that if my kids are completely convinced of God's unfailing love for them, whether they fail or not, they'll have confidence to persevere in life

If slavery, barbarism and desolation are to be called peace, men can have no worse misfortune.

Life is good, when you live in such a way to make it so

You play the hand you're dealt. I think the game's worthwhile.

Friendship is the most constant, the most enduring, the most basic part of love.

Before Jem looks at anyone else he looks at me, and I’ve tried to live so I can look squarely back at him.

I couldn't wait for success, so I went ahead without it.

The Labour Party believes in turning workers against owners; we believe in turning workers into owners.

The wheel that squeaks gets the oil.