Blake has always been a favorite, the lyrics, not so much the prophetic books, but I suppose Yeats influenced me more as a young poet, and the American, Robert Frost.

I am now seventy, rather glad, really, that I won't live to see the horrors to come in the 21st century.

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

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

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

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.

When everything is for 'fun' nothing is for the good.