I did know Ted Hughes and I partly wrote the book to explain to myself and others the complexities of a marriage that was for six years wonderfully productive of poetry and then ended in tragedy.

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

I work very hard on all my poems, but most of the work consists of trying not to sound as if I had worked. I try to make them sound as natural as possible, but within a quite strict form, which to my ears has a lot to do with musical rhythm and sound.

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

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

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

I write, or used to write, to explain to myself situations I couldn't otherwise solve or understand. Meditation comes very naturally to me.