I wondered if people might not have had enough of Simon Armitage and wondered whether I hadn't had enough of Simon Armitage.

The ordinary can be absolutely miraculous.

You’re beautiful because when you were born, undiscovered planets lined up to peep over the rim of your cradle and lay gifts of gravity and light at your miniature feet

If you were going to choose a way of making your way in this world and a place to start from, you might not choose poetry and you might not choose Huddersfield.

We still need a voice that thinks before it speaks.

People who read poetry, for example, like the feel, the heft and the smell of a book.

In all the poems I've written I've not really engaged in politics, and when I've found myself moving in that direction I've always stopped myself.

And wonder, dread and war have lingered in that land where loss and love in turn have held the upper hand.

The Huddersfield that I like best is a large town with a big heart and an open mind.

This misfortune you find is of your own manufacture.

This misfortune you find is of your own manufacture. Keep hold of what you have, it will harm no other, for hatred comes home to the hand that chose it.

Life is never that clean, " he assures her. "Neither is magic.

He was nothing but a conduit, after all, and there isn't a culvert in the world that remembers the water flowed through it once the rain has stopped.

Any man whose errors take ten years to correct is quite a man.

To be prepared is half the victory.

It's not the side effects of the cocaine. . . . I'm thinking that it must be love.

If we can't have comedy books written about aspects of womanhood without going into a panic attack about it, then we haven't got very far at being equal.

My father is a well known artist, Ted Dyer, who has been painting for many years. Our work is very different, but growing up surrounded by paintings, paints, easels and art books does have an effect.

If infants are ready to do something, they will do it. In fact, when they are ready, they have to do it.

Truth doesn't always heal a wounded soul.

Prosperity's the very bond of love.