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

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

Blackbirds are the cellos of the deep farms.

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.

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

When next the devil attack you apply your break resist the devil and he will flew from you. The bible didn't say you should run from the devil but resist him.

The world of possibilities exists in any situation

In a tough situation, don't avoid acting just because it's easier or comfortable. Don't lapse into a passive state. People who give up, die.

Over done forgotten gone now my troubles will move on.

Only one person in a million becomes enlightened without a teacher's help.

They lived freely among the students, they argued with the men over philosophical, sociological and artistic matters, they were just as good as the men themselves: only better, since they were women.

Culture is the widening of the mind and of the spirit. It is never a narrowing of the mind or a restriction of the human spirit or the country's spirit.

We're all going to be tested. The dark energy is going to knock on all of our doors.

[James] Baldwin explained that you have your own history, and that you cannot be responsible, for example, for slavery.

An acre in Middlesex is better than a principality in Utopia.