I only keep books that I like very much. Otherwise I'd throw them out.

People haven't got the interest in long long works these days. A lack of interest which I share.

And in a way, that's been a help to me, because I take great passions for a particular poet - sometimes it lasts for many years, sometimes only for a while. This happens to everybody.

And some poets are far better read off the page because they're very bad speakers. I'm thinking of one in particular whom I won't name, a good poet, and he reads in such a dry, boring way, your eyes start drooping.

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

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

All I write about is what's happened to me and to people I know, and the better I know them, the more likely they are to be written about.