I've never been more famous than I was, suddenly, in 1986.

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?'

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?

Sometimes writing everyday is like pulling teeth, painful, but necessary.

I am feeling more. I feel everything more. I cannot express it. I can hardly keep track of it all. It is you! All you! Everything!

God will help you make the choices that guide you into His path for each stage and age of your life.

We are only human, and the gods have fashioned us for love. That is our great glory, and our great tragedy.

Next time I will ...""From now on I will ..."- What makes me think I am wiser today than I will be tomorrow?

No noble man ever hated good wine.

I am drawn to characters that go on journeys, characters that are real people, that have life.

It's no good being the best actor in the world if nobody sees you because you didn't happen to be there at the right day when a part was being cast.

The chief danger about Paris is that it is such a strong stimulant.