There comes a time when you have to trust your own judgment, when you must close your eyes and let your instinct rule you.

Each word bears its weight, so you have to read my poems quite slowly.

Blackbirds are the cellos of the deep farms.

The sea is as near as we come to another world.

A poem might be defined as thinking about feelings - about human feelings and frailties.

I married a young Englishman in Cambridge in 1955 and have lived in Britain every since.

There's no friend like someone who has known you since you were five.

There is far too much literary criticism of the wrong kind. That is why I never could have survived as an academic.

Poets should ignore most criticism and get on with making poetry.

Yes, I do often write poems from the mind, but I hope I don't ignore feelings and emotions.

I like rhyme because it is memorable, I like form because having to work to a pattern gives me original ideas.

Every morning is my birthday and every night is my death-day.

Terriers are problem solvers. They'll do what you tell them, but only if it happens to be in line with what they wanted to do anyway.

It is preoccupation with possession more than anything else that prevents men from living freely and nobly.

Your network is your filter.

At least when you're young you're also stupid.

If you are not too large for the place you occupy, you are too small for it.

Though fancy may be the patient's complaint, necessity is often the doctor's.

The body isn’t the foundation of your health. The body is the physical manifestation of the sum of your life experiences.

I don't have specific television ambitions in the sense that I remain fundamentally and academic, and so, my innermost ambitions are what's the next discovery I can make; that's in my direct center.

The conception of background music is changing. You use less and less of it these days.