You play, you win, you play, you lose. You play. It’s the playing that’s irresistible. Dicing from one year to the next with the things you love, what you risk reveals what you value.

Poets will never be the highest-paid writers in the world. Instead, poetry will go on cutting a hand-made path through the mass-market insanity. For me, anyway, that path is the one that leads to the Chapel of the Grail.

I like to think the price I paid by being open about my private life helped.

I’m not club-able, you see. I don’t like literary parties and literary gatherings and literary identities. I’d hate to join anything, however loosely.

Slightest accidents open up new worlds.

Unhappiness is selfish, grief is selfish. For whom are the tears?

I realised something important: whatever is on the outside can be taken away at any time. Only what is inside you is safe.