It is only when they go wrong that machines remind you how powerful they are.

Mocking Hugh Hefner is easy to do, and in my mind should be made easier.

It's a big thing to call yourself a poet. All I can say is that I have always written poems. I don't think I'm interested in any discussion about whether I'm a good poet, a bad poet or a great poet. But I am sure, I want to write great poems. I think every poet should want that.

I think the great trick of doing my sort of thing is to learn to use your downtime, and of course in the media and especially in television, there's a heck of a lot of time of waiting around. And I think the trick is to use that.

The secret for an artist is to make that a subject and not bang your head against the wall and give up. But to turn it into and treat the new subject matter, which is one's own vanishing.

One of the virtues of the NHS... it doesn't worry you about money at the moment when you're least capable of doing anything about it.

You can't be young always. The day will come when everything will fall apart.