It often occurs to me that we love most what makes us miserable. In my opinion the damned are damned because they enjoy being damned.

Macmillan's rejection had left him very downcast... Patrick Swift was invited to peruse the contents and decided that the poems should be published.

It often occurs to me that we love most what makes us miserable. In my opinion the damned are damned because they enjoy being damned.

We are not alone in our loneliness, others have been here and known griefs we thought our special own.

It is impossible to read the daily press without being diverted from reality. You are full of enthusiasm for the eternal verities - life is worth living, and then out of sinful curiosity you open a newspaper. You are disillusioned and wrecked.

Publication there [in Nimbus] was to prove a turning point… The publication of his next volume of verse, Come Dance with Kitty Stobling, was to be directly linked to the mini-collection in Nimbus, and his Collected Poems (1964)

There is something wrong with a work of art if it can be understood by a policeman.