I like rhyme because it is memorable, I like form because having to work to a pattern gives me original ideas.

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

Blackbirds are the cellos of the deep farms.

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 am now seventy, rather glad, really, that I won't live to see the horrors to come in the 21st century.

I was being hated for about 40 or 50 years by the whole world, but it did not destroy me, and it did not ruin my health. And the reason is because I just did not answer them. I had my own life.

I like people and I like hearing their stories. The way that they deliver them is always very particular and I think that their accents are integral to that.

Insist that the first question each of us asks isn't "What's good for me?" but "What's good for the country my children will inherit?

No matter what age you are, or what your circumstances might be, you are special and you still have something unique to offer. Your life, because of who you are, has meaning.

The eye of a human being is a microscope, which makes the world seem bigger than it really is.

Preparation for becoming attentive to Christianity does not consist in reading many books ... but in fuller immersion in existence.

Envy is everywhere. Who is without envy? And most people Are unaware or unashamed of being envious.

The Son of God died; it is by all means to be believed because it is absurd. And he was buried and rose again; the fact is certain, because it is impossible.

Lawyers-a profession it is to disguise matters.

My voice sounded like one of the guinea fowl that screeched in our trees as it pooped, but I never let that stop me.