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?

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 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.

I would always rather be happy than dignified.

Kind words are salve to a cankered soul

I loved the way he kissed me, as if he had to, as if he'd go crazy if he didn't and had nearly waited too long.

And they certainly wouldn’t take you along to a murder. That would be irresponsible parenting.

That's just tragic, that you can spend four years of your life studying the design of three dimensional objects and not make one.

No democracy can exist unless each of its citizens is as capable of outrage at injustice to another as he is of outrage at unjustice to himself.

Do not let a leader lead you on a bad path.

Maybe now it's time to take some chances on TV and push the boundaries with what I can do on television.

It is nonviolent non-co-operation which evokes the highest spirit of self-sacrifice that will wean one from the error of one's ways.

The Senkaku islands are inherently Japanese territory. I want to show my strong determination to prevent this from changing.