There's very little of the intentional about the business of writing poetry, as least as far as I can see.

Words want to find chimes with each other, things want to connect.

I certainly am interested in accessibility, clarity, and immediacy.

The ground swell is what’s going to sink you as well as being what buoys you up. These are clichés also, of course, and I’m sometimes interested in how much one can get away with.

One will never again look at a birch tree, after the Robert Frost poem, in exactly the same way.

Form is a straitjacket in the way that a straitjacket was a straitjacket for Houdini.

The point of poetry is to be acutely discomforting, to prod and provoke, to poke us in the eye, to punch us in the nose, to knock us off our feet, to take our breath away.

Confusion is what we're living with - not being able to make sense of what's happening to us from day to day. Whereas making sense is what we're aiming for - making sense.

That's one of the great things about poetry; one realises that one does one's little turn - that you're just part of the great crop, as it were.

I believe that these devices like repetition and rhyme are not artificial, that they're not imposed, somehow, on the language.

I suppose for whatever reason I actively welcome being put down, something which perhaps goes back to my upbringing - that accusation of not being worthy which could be laid at one's door.

When you walk a life of honesty, you live a life of truth.

The older I get the more secrets I have, never to be revealed and this, I know, is a common condition of people my age. and why all this emphasis on kissing and telling? Kisses are the least of it.

The concept of Queen is to be regal and majestic. Glamour is part of us and we want to be dandy.

Too many people are going for self and not trying to help their communities.

What's the trick to writing a genuinely funny comedy? The trick is therapy. Take notes.

Former Olympians also get paid to make appearances. Many of them won their medals in an era when Olympic success didn't go hand-in-hand with financial success.

A lot of people struggle in their younger years, and I think people can relate to that.

Learning to inhibit unwanted contractions of muscles that function without, or in spite of, our will, is the main task in coordinated action.

Always focus on the outcome of a desired act.

Let others, worn with living / And living's aftermath, / Take Sleep to heal the heart's distress, / Take Love to be their comfortress, / Take Song or Food or Fancy Dress, / But I shall take a Bath.