I hear poets complaining: 'We face what our forebears did not face. We face TV. We face radio. We face this and that.'

I am absolutely convinced that my life was redeemed by poetry.

I have an over-attachment to precision, which is why I've sold more magazines than any man alive.

America is an empire. I hope you know that now. All empires, by definition, are bumbling, shambolic, bullying, bureaucratic affairs, as certain of the rightness of their cause in infancy, as they are corrupted by power in their dotage.

The beginnings of a forest is one of the ugliest things on the planet. It's bleak and your neighbours hate you.

I have been portrayed by actors in three television documentaries, two plays, one musical and a film. It's no fun watching yourself being traduced and imitated by an actor.

I thoroughly object to getting old. If you could let me be 16 again, I'd give you everything I've got and everything I'll ever have.