At home in Ireland, there's a habit of avoidance, an ironical attitude towards the authority figure.

Hope is not optimism, which expects things to turn out well, but something rooted in the conviction that there is good worth working for.

Write whatever you like!

When I first encountered the name of the city of Stockholm, I little thought that I would ever visit it, never mind end up being welcomed to it as a guest of the Swedish Academy and the Nobel Foundation.

The way we are living, timorous or bold, will have been our life.

Poetry is language in orbit.

I've always associated the moment of writing with a moment of lift, of joy, of unexpected reward.