Scholars, I plead with you, Where are your dictionaries of the wind, the grasses?

I'm very gregarious, but I love being in the hills on my own.

However, I learned something. I thought that if the young person, the student, has poetry in him or her, to offer them help is like offering a propeller to a bird.

But I hang on to books. I love them. I even think they're very nice decor in a room - far better than paintings... That's not quite true!

When I go fishing I like to know that there's nobody within five miles of me.

I said I have no powers of invention. Well, I also have no powers of mimicry.

I used to fish the Border rivers, but nowadays you have to queue up for a shot and I can't stand that.

When I was asked to be Writer in Residence at Edinburgh I thought, you can't teach poetry. This is ridiculous.

And the second question, can poetry be taught? I didn't think so.

There are some friends you don't meet for twenty years and when you meet them again it's as if no twenty years has happened - you're lucky when that happens. I feel the same about books.

It's like breathing in and out to me. It's like having a conversation with someone who isn't there. Because it has to be addressed to somebody - not a particular person, or very rarely.

You can't go too wrong with books

That was a really shitty move Liam! How would you like it if I turned into an animal when we were arguing?

I am a reasonable and sane functionalist tempered by irrational frivolity.

I had to live and breathe Margaret Thatcher for a few months. I totally engulfed myself in her life. I read her autobiography and a biography, 'The Grocer's Daughter.'

Greatness and madness are next door neighbours; and they borrow each other's sugar. You don't get there without the other.

Everywhere you go, mother nature's throwing some curve-ball at you.

It's one of the ironies of investing. The rich can afford to take risks, but they don't need to. The poor need to take risks, but they often can't afford to.

I haven't been down to Navy Pier in such a long time. I know that's probably the touristy thing to do, but it just reminds me so much of 2000 when I was here shooting ["Hardball"].

Whenever we safely land in a plane, we promise God a little something.

Ignorant people in preppy clothes are more dangerous to America than oil embargoes.