When I talk of hearing a poet's voice speaking, I always think of it as in the presence of the man.

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.

When I was asked to be Writer in Residence at Edinburgh I thought, you can't teach poetry. This is ridiculous.

I don't think of myself all the time.

Anybody who writes doesn't like to be misunderstood.

But I hang on to books. I love them. I even think they're very nice decor in a room - far better than paintings... That's not quite true!

Well, I'm a light traveller. I chuck things away.