There are some friends you don't meet for twenty years and when you meet them again it's as if no twenty years has happened - you're lucky when that happens. I feel the same about books.

I'm very gregarious, but I love being in the hills on my own.

However, I learned something. I thought that if the young person, the student, has poetry in him or her, to offer them help is like offering a propeller to a bird.

But I hang on to books. I love them. I even think they're very nice decor in a room - far better than paintings... That's not quite true!

When I go fishing I like to know that there's nobody within five miles of me.

I said I have no powers of invention. Well, I also have no powers of mimicry.

I used to fish the Border rivers, but nowadays you have to queue up for a shot and I can't stand that.

When I was asked to be Writer in Residence at Edinburgh I thought, you can't teach poetry. This is ridiculous.

And the second question, can poetry be taught? I didn't think so.

It's like breathing in and out to me. It's like having a conversation with someone who isn't there. Because it has to be addressed to somebody - not a particular person, or very rarely.

Well, I love fishing. I wouldn't kill a fly myself but I've no hesitation in killing a fish. A lot of men are like that. No bother. Out you come. Thump. And that's not the only reason.

Life is a sacred shared-life.

My personal conviction is that science is concerned wholly with truth, not with ethics.

Perfection belongs to the Gods; the most we can hope for is excellence.

They have dog food for constipated dogs. If your dog is constipated, why screw up a good thing? Stay indoors and let 'em bloat!

People need hard times and oppression to develop psychic muscles.

I pray on the principle that wine knocks the cork out of a bottle. There is an inward fermentation, and there must be a vent.

Give us that calm certainty of truth, that nearness to Thee, that conviction of the reality of the life to come, which we shall need to bear us through the troubles of this.

No man has ever gone through the crisis of deliberately making Jesus Lord and found Him to be a failure.

I came from a real tough neighborhood. I put my hand in some cement and felt another hand.

It's not the lack of resources that cause failure, it's the lack of resourcefulness that causes failure.