My feelings towards the newspapers are very affectionate.

I see myself as a recovering journalist.

Apparently when I went to school, I had a Glasgow accent.

One good thing about leaving daily journalism was that I was no longer obliged to read all the book prize short lists.

I am a print addict. I have an ebook and a computer but I remain hooked on print.

My father used to get me to read the newspaper to him, as if I was a radio. I would stand there and read the 'Times.

That's what I really wanted to do when I was 16, be in comics!

...and he just sat back and stared at the tube, almost interested in what was happening, trying to find the ability to believe in that lie so he could believe the one within.

As a poet and writer in general I feel very grateful that I can just make a chapbook and that we don't have the expenses of filmmakers.

It's human nature to be curious about people, and to be more curious about young people than old people. We want to cheer something on at the same time we want to tear it down. That's just so normal.

I love my dogs and I give them affection all the time but it has to be at the right time or they get confused.

My congratulations on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the October Revolution.

Nothing is more difficult than to understand the dead, I've found; but nothing is more dangerous than to ignore them.

The first duty of the gospel preacher is to declare God's law and to show the nature of sin.

It could plausibly be argued that far from Christian theology having hampered the study of nature for fifteen hundred years, it was Greek corruptions of biblical Christianity which hampered it.

Many's the man/ who thought himself wise/ but what he needed/ he did not know.

We arrange our lives-even the best and boldest men and women that exist, just as much as the most limited-with reference to what society conventionally rules and makes right.