In my case, the long gaps between my books have got quite a lot to do with lack of confidence. A lot of the time when I'm not writing I start thinking I can't do it.

Write to amuse? What an appalling suggestion! I write to make people anxious and miserable and to worsen their indigestion.

Some socks are loners They can't live in pairs.

Bloody Christmas, here again, let us raise a loving cup, peace on earth, goodwill to men, and make them do the washing up.

When a poem doesn't work, the first question to ask yourself is, 'Am I telling the truth?'

I have a theory that if you've got the kind of parents who want to send you to boarding school, you're probably better off at boarding school.

The reason modern poetry is difficult is so that the poet's wife cannot understand it.

Bloody men are like bloody buses - you wait for about a year and as soon as one approaches your stop two or three others appear.

I like buying clothes, especially as I get a tax-deductible allowance.

The interesting thing is that you don't often meet a poet who doesn't have a sense of humour, and some of them do keep it out of their poems because they're afraid of being seen as light versifiers.

I was single for a long time and felt very much alone in the world, and talk of family values upset me very much at that phase in my life, because I used to think: 'What about people like me?

To be a part of the kingdom you need to desire it enough to search it out

Wild Bill was anything but a quarrelsome man yet I have personal knowledge of at least half a dozen men whom he had at various times killed.

A helluva athlete, the best ever to play his position in the history of the game.

If it is hard to accept a rebuke, even a private one, it is harder still to administer one in loving humility.

I have, I think, eight mentors. It's crazy, but I need them. They are all really important to me. They keep me grounded and advise me.

I guess you're only as good as the waves.

It is no sin to look at a nice girl.

Be relentless in your pursuit for expansion.

The beliefs I was raised with - to respect animals and to be aware of nature, to understand that we share this planet with other creatures - have had a huge impact on me.

Truth suffers, but never dies.