I started off in England and very few people knew I was Australian. I mean, the clues were in the poems, but they didn't read them very carefully, and so for years and years I was considered completely part of the English poetry scene.

An old art spreading rumours about / Paradise, it begs outside the gates / Of the gods: the active gods come out.

I am moving deeper into my own brain.

Poetry is either language lit up by life or life lit up by language

Writing poetry is the only form of literary labour which gives me entire satisfaction.

Auden is an accomplished rhymer and Shakespeare is not.

Love without sex is still the most efficient form of hell known to man.