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

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

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

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

And it's impossible for me to read Henry James.

All those authors there, most of whom of course I've never met. That's the poetry side, that's the prose side, that's the fishing and miscellaneous behind me. You get an affection for books that you've enjoyed.