All I write about is what's happened to me and to people I know, and the better I know them, the more likely they are to be written about.

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.

Learn to not live in fears and worries over your obstacles, because they don't control your destiny, God does.

Won't you be my girlfriend I'll treat you goodI know you hear your friends when they say you should 'Cause if you were my girlfriend I'd be your shining star The one to show you where you are

The vigorous are no better than the lazy during one half of life, for all men are alike when asleep.

Be content with doing calmly the little which depends upon yourself, and let all else be to you as if it were not.

Games are providing rewards that reality is not.

Control language and you control thought; control thought and you control action; control action and you control the world.

I just believe that life is more than rehearsing how to die...

Success is not a harbor but a voyage with its own perils to the spirit. The game of life is to come up a winner, to be a success, or to achieve what we set out to do.

The best guide in life is strength.

A great city may be seen as the construction of words as well as stone.