I write, or used to write, to explain to myself situations I couldn't otherwise solve or understand. Meditation comes very naturally to me.

Each word bears its weight, so you have to read my poems quite slowly.

Blackbirds are the cellos of the deep farms.

The sea is as near as we come to another world.

A poem might be defined as thinking about feelings - about human feelings and frailties.

I married a young Englishman in Cambridge in 1955 and have lived in Britain every since.

There's no friend like someone who has known you since you were five.

There is far too much literary criticism of the wrong kind. That is why I never could have survived as an academic.

Poets should ignore most criticism and get on with making poetry.

Yes, I do often write poems from the mind, but I hope I don't ignore feelings and emotions.

I like rhyme because it is memorable, I like form because having to work to a pattern gives me original ideas.

God is in desperate search for those sons he could send to the world of sports to rule and manage it for him

It is not enough to have a talented designer; the management must be inspired too. The creative process is very disorganised; the production process has to be very rational.

Never does a man know the force that is in him till some mighty affliction or grief has humanized the soul.

When it's done, it's done. And no one will know until it's done.

I have hired a bodyguard, on the recommendation of my friends and the government. It's outrageous, having to live like this.

You know, food is such - it's a hug for people.

He has the players too happy.

Once you told yourself a story enough times, it was so easy to keep on believing it.

I think there's as much profundity and wisdom in Shakespeare, more so in fact, than those in the Bible.

I know perfectly well my own egotism.