The gift of writing is to be self-forgetful...

I always believed that whatever had to be written would somehow get itself written.

As writers and readers, as sinners and citizens, our realism and our aesthetic sense make us wary of crediting the positive note.

The thing about writing is that if you have the impulse, you will find the time.

I suppose I did feel a certain public pressure always.

Irish readers, British readers, American readers: is it odd that I haven't a clue about how differently they react? Or better say, I cannot find the words to describe my hunch about them.

The fact of the matter is that the most unexpected and miraculous thing in my life was the arrival in it of poetry itself - as a vocation and an elevation almost.