Pain is filtered in a poem so that it becomes finally, in the end, pleasure.

The future is always beginning now.

We’re only here for a short while. And I think it’s such a lucky accident, having been born, that we’re almost obliged to pay attention.

If every head of state and every government official spent an hour a day reading poetry we'd live in a much more humane and decent world.

Once you start describing nothingness, you end up with somethingness.

Poetry is, first and last, language - the rest is filler.

I feel that anything is possible in a poem.

And at least in poetry you should feel free to lie. That is, not to lie, but to imagine what you want, to follow the direction of the poem.

Ink runs from the corners of my mouth. There is no happiness like mine. I have been eating poetry.

Poems not only demand patience, they demand a kind of surrender. You must give yourself up to them. This is the real food for a poet: other poems, not meat loaf.

Each moment is a place you've never been.

You know, people ask me. They say 'Dan, three years later do you really want to be drawing cat whiskers on your face?' but they don't understand. The cat whiskers, they come from within.

The flame that burns Twice as bright burns half as long.

The most complicated skill is to be simple.

Bear and forbear.

Illiteracy is rampant. People are out of communication.

He came with death held in his paw Which no rat born could face Oh woe to those who break the law Of Sunflash and his mace!

Let us not kid ourselves; let us remember that literature is of no use whatever, except in the very special case of somebody's wishing to become, of all things, a Professor of Literature.

Modern medicine is a negation of health. It isn't organised to serve human health, but only itself, as an institution. It makes more people sick than it heals.

I have no regrets. If you regret things, you're sort of stepping backwards. I'm a believer in going forwards.

A happy marriage isn't the easiest thing in the world to achieve, but it's much easier to come by than a happy but illicit affair.