In fact a lot of them I think are absolute baloney. Those Charles Olsens and people like that. At first I was interested in seeing what they were up to, what they were doing, why they were doing it. They never moved me in the way that one is moved by true poetry.

When I go fishing I like to know that there's nobody within five miles of me.

I'm very gregarious, but I love being in the hills on my own.

But you'd have a job to find many of my poems which would seem to be very influenced by a particular person.

I used to fish the Border rivers, but nowadays you have to queue up for a shot and I can't stand that.

I said I have no powers of invention. Well, I also have no powers of mimicry.

A terrible thing about getting oldish is that your friends start dying, and in the last ten years I have lost seven or eight of my closest.