I think the dangers are different now. Our abuse of the planet and our resources is an anxiety.

I think the dangers are different now. Our abuse of the planet and our resources is an anxiety.

It's always good when women win things in fiction because it tends to be more male-dominated, unlike poetry, which is more equal.

Between 9am and 3pm is when I work most intensely.

Poetry and prayer are very similar.

I still read Donne, particularly his love poems.

I'll be left writing picture books and fairy tales.

Poets deal in writing about feelings and trying to find the language and images for intense feelings.

Christmas is taken very seriously in this household. I believe in Father Christmas, and there's no way I'd do anything to undermine that belief.

My prose is turgid, it just hasn't got any energy.

I write in that space between Ella's childhood and mine. I know it all sounds a bit sinister.

Every day is a gift with a child, no matter what problems you have.

I write quite a lot of sonnets, and I think of them almost as prayers: short and memorable, something you can recite.

Edinburgh is my favourite city. We'll be doing a lot of children's theatre and galleries.

Like the sand and the oyster, it's a creative irritant. In each poem, I'm trying to reveal a truth, so it can't have a fictional beginning.

When you have a child, your previous life seems like someone else's. It's like living in a house and suddenly finding a room you didn't know was there, full of treasure and light.

Auden said poetry makes nothing happen. But I wonder if the opposite could be true. It could make something happen.

I always say that I'll have a go and see whether the poem works and if it does, then fine.

I am always pleased to be asked to write a poem.

I grew up in a bookless house - my parents didn't read poetry, so if I hadn't had the chance to experience it at school I'd never have experienced it. But I loved English, and I was very lucky in that I had inspirational English teachers, Miss Scriven and Mr. Walker, and they liked us to learn poems by heart, which I found I loved doing.

I like to think that I'm a sort of poet for our times.

If I felt, in the event of a royal wedding, inspired to write about people coming together in marriage or civil partnership, I would just be grateful to have an idea for the poem. And if I didn't, I'd ignore it.

If we think of what's up ahead, with climate change and wars over water, it's very frightening.

The moment of inspiration can come from memory, or language, or the imagination, or experience - anything that makes an impression forcibly enough for language to form.

The poem is a form of texting... it's the original text. It's a perfecting of a feeling in language - it's a way of saying more with less, just as texting is.

The poem is the literary form of the 21st century. It's able to connect young people in a deep way to language... it's language as play.

You can find poetry in your everyday life, your memory, in what people say on the bus, in the news, or just what's in your heart.

Bees are the batteries of orchards gardens guard them.

Power without abuse loses its charm.

I would certainly choose my jobs depending on the actions of the character. I won't do anything that has to do with child abuse or women's abuse.

We expect teachers to handle teenage pregnancy, substance abuse, and the failings of the family. Then we expect them to educate our children.

What 'jazz' means to me is the worst kind of working conditions, the worst in cultural prejudice. The term 'jazz' has come to mean the abuse and exploitation of black musicians.

I want people to realize that the domestic abuse charges happened in 1989. I didn't meet any of them until 1993.

Terrorism is in good part an effective government propaganda; it serves to deflect attention from governmental abuse toward a mostly imagined, highly dangerous outside enemy.

So at the end of the day, our number 1 goal, our top priority, is to motivate American youngsters to reject the abuse of illegal drugs, tobacco and alcohol. All three of them are illegal behaviors.

The U.S. government has in recent years fought what it termed wars against AIDs, drug abuse, poverty, illiteracy and terrorism. Each of those wars has budgets, legislation, offices, officials, letterhead - everything necessary in a bureaucracy to tell you something is real.

Rape, mutilation, abuse, and theft are the natural outcome of a world in which force rules, in which human beings are objects.

By finding waste and abuse in entitlement programs, and eliminating it, we can ensure that the funds that are put into these programs go to the people that need them the most.

Somebody said to me this morning, 'To what do you attribute your longevity?' I don't know. I mean, I couldn't have planned my life out better. By all accounts I should be dead! The abuse I put my body through: the drugs, the alcohol, the lifestyle I've lived the last 30 years!

Anyone entrusted with power will abuse it if not also animated with the love of truth and virtue, no matter whether he be a prince, or one of the people.

The stated mission at the time was simply to use the influence of the entertainment industry to do an accurate portrayal of drug and alcohol abuse. We all admit that we're not trying to censor anybody.

This October, we renew the fight against domestic violence and abuse in America. Together, we can eliminate domestic violence from homes across the country and ensure that our children grow up in healthy, peaceful communities.

I've always had a natural fear of the police, or abuse of their power.

For if there is anything to one's praise, it is foolish vanity to be gratified at it, and if it is abuse - why one is always sure to hear of it from one damned good-natured friend or another!

Use, don't abuse.

Let's suppose somebody abused you sexually. You still had a choice, though not a good one, about what to tell yourself about the abuse.

I think the dangers are different now. Our abuse of the planet and our resources is an anxiety.

There was a reason my first substantial role after rehab was to play a maniac whose personal story ended badly. I knew what it was like to go those dark places. I played a guy who died as a result of his abuse.

Bush sees the evil as out there in the wider world, residing in people who 'hate freedom'. Look at his immediate response to the pictures of prisoner abuse; this is not what Americans do, these are not our values.