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

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.

You will never know the feeling of a driver when winning a race. The helmet hides feelings that cannot be understood.

There is no other who experiences your thoughts or your feelings.

I think one's feelings waste themselves in words; they ought all to be distilled into actions which bring results.

Kinsey would identify himself with Galileo in moments of feelings of persecution.

As a small child, I felt in my heart two contradictory feelings, the horror of life and the ecstasy of life.

As an alcoholic, you have no appreciation for your wife or your children's feelings, but I'm making up for that now. I'm winning my children's trust back.

A lot of the stuff that I do with Betty is in the eyes. A lot of the feelings that I evoke with her are unspoken, so that's been fun to play with.

Isn't it strange that its easier to be gentle with the feelings of people we care less about than those of our children, whom we love so much?

I love the line of Flaubert about observing things very intensely. I think our duty as writers begins not with our own feelings, but with the powers of observing.

A date once leaned in to kiss me, and he ended up kissing my cheek. He was a little offended, but I didn't want to kiss him just to not hurt his feelings.

Without feelings of respect, what is there to distinguish men from beasts?

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

Whether he is an artist or not, the photographer is a joyous sensualist, for the simple reason that the eye traffics in feelings, not in thoughts.

We have listened here to the delegates who have recalled the terrible human suffering, and the great material destruction of the late war in the Pacific. It is with feelings of sorrow that we recall the part played in that catastrophic human experience by the old Japan.

In a novel, my feelings and sense of outrage can find a broader means of expression which would be more symbolic and applicable to many European countries.

Everything I do is blown out of proportion. It really hurts my feelings.

The story line was done in a way that's organic and was doled out very slowly in little bites. We think that's authentic for this character, that her feelings are very deeply buried or she never felt them.

I'd much rather be in a movie that people have really strong feelings about than one that makes a hundred million dollars but you can't remember because it's just like all the others.

The blues comes right back to a person's feelings, to his daily activities in life. But rich people don't know nothing about the blues, please believe me.

Being an artist is dragging your innermost feelings out, giving a piece of yourself, no matter in which art form, in which medium.

Get up from that piano. You hurtin' its feelings.