Blackbirds are the cellos of the deep farms.

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

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

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.

I don't need anyone to rectify my existence. The most profound relationship we will ever have is the one with ourselves.

Routine is not organization, any more than paralysis is order.

Hindsight is a beautiful thing, mage. The past is for the memory, the present is for the mind.

Labels don't really impress, it's the uniqueness and risk in decor that inspire.

In reality, our mind is the creator of all the things we experience.

Could beauty be beaten out, O youth the cities have sent to strike at each other's strength, it is you who have kept her alight.

The time is ripe, and rotten-ripe, for change.

I came out when I was 15 and I was a very active teenager in that regard.

The endurance athlete is the ultimate realist.

These two clubs had a monopoly of the domestic honours last season.