Write to amuse? What an appalling suggestion! I write to make people anxious and miserable and to worsen their indigestion.

I've said what I'm prepared to say in my poems, and then journalists think that you're going to tell them a whole lot more.

I think it's a question which particularly arises over women writers: whether it's better to have a happy life or a good supply of tragic plots.

Write to amuse? What an appalling suggestion! I write to make people anxious and miserable and to worsen their indigestion.

The reason modern poetry is difficult is so that the poet's wife cannot understand it.

Bloody Christmas, here again, let us raise a loving cup, peace on earth, goodwill to men, and make them do the washing up.

I was single for a long time and felt very much alone in the world, and talk of family values upset me very much at that phase in my life, because I used to think: 'What about people like me?