Poetry needs to be alive, unabashedly, and, for me, that entails seeing its complexity, the grit and grimness and jubilance and beauty.

Poetry does need a bit of ferocity. The only way to attend to the fractured world is to write a ferocious kind of music, to sing that volatility.

The more prose I wrote, the more the pendulum swung back toward the middle, merging some poetic sensibilities with the more fundamental elements of creative prose.

I found it incredibly challenging to write clear prose that had the dynamism that I wanted.

Well, we're all going to die, so mortality is a part of writing and life.

Being deeply aware of fragility and ecstasy seems to me an essential part of being alive and living fully - and there's no way for me to separate this from my poems.

I think of my best poems as vessels that I can or hope to fill with everything I have.

I am sick of women who love one. Women who hate one are much more interesting.

Maria is the best reason to come home.

It can never be wrong to give pleasure.

When dogs and humans make eye contact, that actually releases what's known as the love hormone, oxytocin, in both the dog and the human.

I really do want to just be able to sit in the corner of the pub with my friends... to just be an actor and still go to the supermarket and not get bothered.

Across the board, it's infinitely more effective to praise actions that you want to encourage than to punish those you disapprove of.

If you have a great ambition, take as big a step as possible in the direction of fulfilling it. The step may only be a tiny one, but trust that it may be the largest one possible for now.

I work best when a little scared, when there's so much more than the lines to think about.

The future of mankind lies waiting for those who will come to understand their lives and take up their responsibilities to all living things.

If you see something you don't understand, smash it.