All those authors there, most of whom of course I've never met. That's the poetry side, that's the prose side, that's the fishing and miscellaneous behind me. You get an affection for books that you've enjoyed.

There are some friends you don't meet for twenty years and when you meet them again it's as if no twenty years has happened - you're lucky when that happens. I feel the same about books.

Anybody who writes doesn't like to be misunderstood.

A terrible thing about getting oldish is that your friends start dying, and in the last ten years I have lost seven or eight of my closest.

I said I have no powers of invention. Well, I also have no powers of mimicry.

And the second question, can poetry be taught? I didn't think so.

All those authors there, most of whom of course I've never met. That's the poetry side, that's the prose side, that's the fishing and miscellaneous behind me. You get an affection for books that you've enjoyed.

And some poets are far better read off the page because they're very bad speakers. I'm thinking of one in particular whom I won't name, a good poet, and he reads in such a dry, boring way, your eyes start drooping.

People haven't got the interest in long long works these days. A lack of interest which I share.

I don't care whether a book is a first edition or not. I'm not a bibliophile in that word's natural sense.

I used to fish the Border rivers, but nowadays you have to queue up for a shot and I can't stand that.

But I hang on to books. I love them. I even think they're very nice decor in a room - far better than paintings... That's not quite true!

In fact a lot of them I think are absolute baloney. Those Charles Olsens and people like that. At first I was interested in seeing what they were up to, what they were doing, why they were doing it. They never moved me in the way that one is moved by true poetry.

When I was asked to be Writer in Residence at Edinburgh I thought, you can't teach poetry. This is ridiculous.

I only keep books that I like very much. Otherwise I'd throw them out.

And in a way, that's been a help to me, because I take great passions for a particular poet - sometimes it lasts for many years, sometimes only for a while. This happens to everybody.

But you'd have a job to find many of my poems which would seem to be very influenced by a particular person.

If I wrote a play with four characters every single one of them would talk like me regardless of age or sex.

I used to have a great love for Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy, the big boys of the last century.

It's like breathing in and out to me. It's like having a conversation with someone who isn't there. Because it has to be addressed to somebody - not a particular person, or very rarely.

Well, I'm a light traveller. I chuck things away.

When I was a teacher, teachers would come into my classroom and admire my desk on which lay nothing whatever, whereas theirs were heaped with papers and books.

And if they haven't got poetry in them, there's nothing you can do that will produce it.

However, I learned something. I thought that if the young person, the student, has poetry in him or her, to offer them help is like offering a propeller to a bird.

All I write about is what's happened to me and to people I know, and the better I know them, the more likely they are to be written about.

I don't think of myself all the time.

Well, I love fishing. I wouldn't kill a fly myself but I've no hesitation in killing a fish. A lot of men are like that. No bother. Out you come. Thump. And that's not the only reason.

I'm very gregarious, but I love being in the hills on my own.

And it's impossible for me to read Henry James.

When I go fishing I like to know that there's nobody within five miles of me.

I was very interested in American poetry for many years. Much less now.

When I talk of hearing a poet's voice speaking, I always think of it as in the presence of the man.

I find it's impossible for me to read Proust.

I never think about poetry except when I'm writing it. I mean my poetry.

The essential elements of giving are power and love - activity and affection - and the consciousness of the race testifies that in the high and appropriate exercise of these is a blessedness greater than any other.

The great model of the affection of love in human beings is the sentiment which subsists between parents and children.

No money on earth can buy the love and affection that has been given to me by a grateful nation.

I have loved but one flag and I can not share that devotion and give affection to the mongrel banner invented for the League of Nations.

Affection reproaches, but does not denounce.

But today, I feel the genuine warmth, the affection, and although I may joke about it, I am touched.

Well the wedding in the words of the Archbishop of Canterbury was a fairy tale and there was a huge public impress, investment of goodwill, affection and indeed money in this Institution. It was a huge success at the time.

All those authors there, most of whom of course I've never met. That's the poetry side, that's the prose side, that's the fishing and miscellaneous behind me. You get an affection for books that you've enjoyed.

The public has always had affection for gay entertainers. The time was right for an out gay entertainer.

While I've lived in L.A. since 1985, I'll always consider Chicago my home town and have much affection for it. My parents and sister still live there so I try to visit as often as I'm able.

A mixture of admiration and pity is one of the surest recipes for affection.

I would tell anyone who wants something from someone else to feign not wanting it. People are perverse. If you show great affection to them, they'll run the other way.

I think the President inspires tremendous affection and loyalty by a wide range of people.

He makes a great mistake... who supposes that authority is firmer or better established when it is founded by force than that which is welded by affection.

Even Stravinsky does not evoke the same public affection as Verdi.