I think a poet, like a painter, should be a craftsperson.

Peter Lucas and I live in Durham but spend a great of time in North Wales, where we have a cottage in the mountains, and in Vermont, USA, with my sister - who is a children's writer married to a poet.

A poem might be defined as thinking about feelings - about human feelings and frailties.

I work very hard on all my poems, but most of the work consists of trying not to sound as if I had worked. I try to make them sound as natural as possible, but within a quite strict form, which to my ears has a lot to do with musical rhythm and sound.

I like rhyme because it is memorable, I like form because having to work to a pattern gives me original ideas.

I married a young Englishman in Cambridge in 1955 and have lived in Britain every since.

I did know Ted Hughes and I partly wrote the book to explain to myself and others the complexities of a marriage that was for six years wonderfully productive of poetry and then ended in tragedy.

My earlier poems were sadder than my poems are today, perhaps because I wrote them in confusion or when I was unhappy. But I am not a melancholy person, quite the contrary, no one enjoys laughing more than I do.

I remain loyal to Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert in music and to Shakespeare and Jane Austen in literature.

I dislike literary jargon and never use it. Criticism has only one function and that is to help readers read and understand literature. It is not a science, it is an aid to art.

I am now seventy, rather glad, really, that I won't live to see the horrors to come in the 21st century.

When everything is for 'fun' nothing is for the good.

I write, or used to write, to explain to myself situations I couldn't otherwise solve or understand. Meditation comes very naturally to me.

Sylvia Plath was just a month and a half older than I, and when she committed suicide I was only 30 - and very shocked and sorry. I never knew her personally.

Blake has always been a favorite, the lyrics, not so much the prophetic books, but I suppose Yeats influenced me more as a young poet, and the American, Robert Frost.

I think a poet, like a painter, should be a craftsperson.

Each word bears its weight, so you have to read my poems quite slowly.

I have always made my own rules, in poetry as in life - though I have tried of late to cooperate more with my family. I do, however, believe that without order or pattern poetry is useless.

I don't like poetry that just slaps violent words on a canvas, as it were.

There is far too much literary criticism of the wrong kind. That is why I never could have survived as an academic.

Poets should ignore most criticism and get on with making poetry.

I'm not really quiet or shy. Ask any of my friends! But I always ground my poetry in life itself. Poetry is an art of language, though, so I am always aware of every word's meaning, or multiple meanings.

I play with language a great deal in my poems, and I enjoy that. I try to condense language, that is, I try to express complicated but I hope real emotions as simply as possible. But that doesn't mean the poems are simple, just that they are as truthful as I can make them.

Yes, I do often write poems from the mind, but I hope I don't ignore feelings and emotions.

Have you ever heard of a pianist who never had to practice - or of an architect who didn't bother to find out why buildings stand up?

Many varieties of sonnet, of course, have been written over the ages.

Writing in a strict form can surprise you.

The sea is as near as we come to another world.

Courts have long recognized the federal government's robust power to inspect people and goods entering the country. After all, the very foundation of national sovereignty is a nation's ability to protect its borders.

Your obsession with being in control of your mind makes you so stiff all the times; that is why our egos are growing, and our sense of humor is shrinking.

Humility, like the darkness, reveals the heavenly lights.

Maybe I am too traditional, but men feel important when you ask for their help instead of thinking you can do it all on your own.

There's that unwritten schism that literary writers get all the awards and commericals writers get all the success.

Words are cheap. The biggest thing you can say is 'elephant'.

Discretion is the better part of valor

This is not ice cream. These are powerful products.

Mutual fund managers want your money in their funds. They get paid based on assets under management.

Nowadays, performers worry too much about how they look. They're not concerned about what they're really saying to their audience.

For The Truman Show, I worked for a few weeks, do my gig, then I was done.

I want to write my own stuff, and, you know, it would be nice to put myself in it. But I would like to hope that there are going to be better roles offered as well and that I don't need to do everything. You know, like, I appreciate my career being somewhat DIY, but it would be nice to get some help.

The Bluebird of Happiness long absent from his life, Ned is visited by the Chicken of Depression.

The best things about womanhood might possibly even be the conversations. The chatting. The gabbing. The whispering. The hands-on-hips eye-rolling. The yukking-it up.

When I do get the chance I just love to hang around at home with friends and family.

The whole voiceover world is new and different to me and quite challenging.

I am a spiritual person in an eastern religion kind of way. I learned that happiness for all of us is a switch that you flick in your brain. It doesn't have anything to do with getting a new house, a new car, a new girlfriend, or a new pair of shoes. Our culture is very much about that; we are never happy with what we have today.

Maybe there's something about the outsiderness of being Jewish that makes for a fiery feminist type.

While technology empowers us to remain connected all the time, it's up to us as people to decide when is it not appropriate to be connected... to opt out when you need to.

My family has always been there to support me along the way. My coach, John Nicks, is a great influence.

It's funny, though, because when I first started going to races after we met, I was extremely nervous. It's like being backstage and hoping you don't trip over something or break an amp or accidentally speak into a live microphone, so I was really hesitant.