When I was a teacher, teachers would come into my classroom and admire my desk on which lay nothing whatever, whereas theirs were heaped with papers and 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.

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.

We turned an anthem into an assignment, a poem into a job description.

I want my writing to bring people not just to think of "trees" as they mostly do now, but of each individual tree, and each kind of tree.

The weakest would be put out of service rather than be allowed to compromise the whole system.

From sunny woof and cloudy weft Fell rain in sheets; so, to myself I hummed these hazard rhymes, and left The learned volume on the shelf.

Socially I never was an outsider. I have never thought of the conflict element before frankly, but perhaps it was wanting to belong, and at the same time wanting to retain one's own personality.

Let your dreams be bigger than your fears and your actions louder than your words.

Reading and writing... are exciting. The most exciting things I can think of. And now, as I reflect... I have to say that I've been lucky in that I'm amused by what I do - sufficiently amused.

Of those hundreds of lawsuits [for Donald Trump], we're told 30 are significant. There's pressure for him to settle that suit before he goes into the office.

Oh that simplicity and innocence its own unvalued work so seldom knows!

Richard Dawkins's The Selfish Gene is a classic example of science fiction.