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

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 think it's a question which particularly arises over women writers: whether it's better to have a happy life or a good supply of tragic plots.

Slumps are like a soft bed. They are easy to get into and hard to get out of.

No day is so bad it can't be fixed with a nap.

Clothes can transform your mood and confidence.

Corn syrup and added fats have been outed as major ingredients in fast food, but they hide out in packaged foods too, even presumed-innocent ones like crackers.

Let no man turn aside, ever so slightly, from the broad path of honour, on the plausible pretence that he is justified by the goodness of his end. All good ends can be worked out by good means.

My family always says my voice is a gift—a precious jewel I inherited from my maternal grandma, Julia Kate Hudson. My sister and I used to joke that the 'Kates' in our family got all the talent.

I do what I do. Barack Obama does what politicians do.

As you well know, you just can't believe everything you see and hear, can you?

I’m going to carry you now,” he told her, “so we can move even faster. I’m not asking you, I’m telling you. Any response from you is unnecessary and unwelcome.

We are still in the position of waking up and having a choice. Do I make the world better today somehow, or do I not bother?