People fail you, children disappoint you, thieves break in, moths corrupt, but an Order of the British Empire goes on for ever.

Poverty is a stubborn thing: you seldom escape it with one bound.

She could see that to lose a sibling was hard: it could only seem unnatural:out of time, out of order, a vicious re-run of your own departure into nothingness.

One friend dies and we remain indifferent; another dies, perhaps less intimate, and we see ourselves as dead, and weep, mourn, tear our hair or find ourselves caught up in the madness of the wake, competing with others as to who was closest, now suffers most.

Be bold, but not too bold. Have courage, but not too much.

Poetry, I thought then, and still do, is a matter of space on the page interrupted by a few well-chosen words, to give them importance. Prose is a less grand affair which has to stretch to the edges of the page to be convincing.

Of course you have to believe in destiny; that everything is sheer chance is an intolerable notion.