Most poetry is very formal, but when a modern poet is formal he gets more attention for it than old poets did.

If youth is a defect, it is one we outgrow too soon.

In the end, there is no end.

We feel the machine slipping from our hands As if someone else were steering; If we see light at the end of the tunnel, It's the light of the oncoming train.

The world is absolutely out of control now and is not going to be saved by any reason or unreason.

Poetry is not the record of an event: it is an event.

Their monument sticks like a fishbone in the city's throat.

It is night, And it is vanity, and age Blackens the heart of Adam. Fear, The yellow chirper, beaks its cage.

History has to live with what was here, clutching and close to fumbling all we had - it is so dull and gruesome how we die, unlike writing, life never finishes.

I was overcome with an attack of pathological enthusiasm.

Sometimes nothing is so solid to me as writing - I suppose that's what a vocation means - at times a torment, a bad conscience, but all in all, purpose and direction.

There's nothing more toxic or deadly than a human child. A single touch could kill you.

I want to touch you.''And if you did touch me, what then?''I would find a language of beginning.

Laughter is the closest thing to the grace of God.

I think all regions have had their peculiarities of speech rounded off by television, radio, and people travel so much more now.

Accursed, blasted, heartless things [books]! Full of empty promises, full of false lures, always making you hungry, never satisfying you, never!

I have always been attracted to Australians and Australia.

Earthly regeneration is a parable, but just alone a parable of the things to come.

I think we should have a day off for Father's Day. Dads work very hard. And to be fair, a day off for Mums too, as they work hard. And more bank holidays. They rock.

The writing part of my life never changes, because that's just when the inspiration comes.

Silence is the necessary space around things that allows them to develop and flourish without my pushing.