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

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.

Filthy water cannot be washed.

Winter blues are cured every time with a potato gratin paired with a roast chicken.

The villain in superhero movies is often, I think, what makes the movie.

Good design goes to heaven bad design goes everywhere.

The first time I thought I should be an actor was in school. I thought, 'At least this is something for which I won't have to study.' But I've realised that an actor needs to be constantly unsure about what he's doing and about what's going on around him. The moment you think you've nailed it, you're dead.

Time in its irresistible and ceaseless flow carries along on its flood all created things and drowns them in the depths of obscurity.

I like someone who can take the reins, who knows what they want and is strong with me.

Information wants to be free.

In life we take chances to prove to ourselves that we are strong enough to be here.

I'm compared to my dad all the time, and I've learned to take it positively by working hard.

Negative results are just what I want. They’re just as valuable to me as positive results. I can never find the thing that does the job best until I find the ones that don’t.

If there's one thing I've shown, I'm not scared of physicality. I'm not scared to take some of my own blood. I play hurt; I play injured.

On a purely personal level, it's very strange, because as a kid, Superman informed my personality. Now I've been given the job of forming Superman's personality and, in some ways, drawing on my own background.

I really didn't want to become branded as 'that multistructural guy.'

The price of hating other human beings is loving oneself less.

Every one of us, no matter how damaged or abnormal or shut down, we're all looking for love. Every person needs love in this world, but our views on what love is vary enormously.

I want Yahoo to be the absolute best place to work, to have a fantastic culture.

You know when you're writing, and it's just you and the computer screen, and you never think that anyone is ever going to read it... you're able to say private things when you're writing.

Be patient with yourself. Self-growth is tender; it’s holy ground. There’s no greater investment.

The intelligent have plans; the wise have principles.

The facts are clear. Obamacare is failing the American people.