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

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.

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.

I am now seventy, rather glad, really, that I won't live to see the horrors to come in the 21st century.

I would never forbid you. I can’t forbid you. It’s not in my power to, and it never should be.

To dream of the person you would like to be is to waste the person you are.

Be hopeful at all times and walk in faith, but above all seek love an walk in it. God is love, and when we walk in love we show Him to those we come in contact with.

We get along really well, but TV and film aren't reality. We're best friends, but we do have our fights!

It's a very different bond, siblings and friends. And I just - I wanted that huge family, just to surround me, be surrounded by.

I just don't want to play the same guy again over and over.

There is a what-the-hell moment in life when you feel you have been pre-punished for every sin you'll ever commit.

Nature sometimes contrives to disconcert by reflecting the image of our creation.

Racism is a system of power and in the absence of power you cannot be considered a racist.

The whole idea of television news or any kind of news is to inform people about things they need to know about.