My niece is - her name is Sasha, is currently learning Russian at Melbourne University and I look forward to the day when I can talk to her about Pushkin.

The first language that I learned was Italian in Italy in the early and middle-'60s and I had to do that to keep up with the young men who were courting my wife.

The thing about making a documentary in Las Vegas is there isn't much to film apart from other people making documentaries about Las Vegas.

I taught myself Russian, which was very, very useful, especially for poetry and in fact if you can't read Pushkin in Russian, you're really missing something.

Anyone afraid of what he thinks television does to the world is probably just afraid of the world.

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.

A loose horse is any horse sensible enough to get rid of its rider at an early stage and carry on unencumbered.