Well, I'm a light traveller. I chuck things away.

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.

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.

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.

If it causes you to sin your soul-just walk away

Your dream is only possible through a clear intention and patience.

A man should have a right to be religious if he wants to. The government should not be involved in those decisions.

If women ruled the world and we all got massages, there would be no war.

The long, long road over the moors and up into the forest - who trod it into being first of all? Man, a human being, the first that came here. There was no path before he came.

When I was fifteen years old, the only distinction in music my friends and I made was [that] there's music made by people with short hair and music made by people with long hair.

I bring to the music industry something that isn't over-complicated. What you see is what you get. But, I feel every performer has something unique to offer.

Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages.

I loved American universities. In many ways, they are better organized - certainly than French universities.

The first years in Parliament I did nothing - nothing to any purpose. My own distinction was my darling object.