My heart has made its mind up And I'm afraid it's you.

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?

I wish I could play the whole game and come back tomorrow.

If one wants to lead a good life, A HUMAN LIFE, one must work.

In a world where you can be anything, be yourself.

History is the memory of States.

If I never spoke of hell, I should think I had kept back something that was profitable, and should look on myself as an accomplice of the devil.

Talent is insignificant. I know a lot of talented ruins. Beyond talent lie all the usual words: discipline, love, luck, but, most of all, endurance.

Rebellion flamed up in her soul as the dark hours passed by – not because she had no future but because she had no past.

I can represent my culture while helping not only the Chinese-American community, but also the community at large.

In the first person, the readers feel smart, like it's them solving the case.

Nothing is so embarrassing as watching someone do something that you said couldn't be done.