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.

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.

I want the municipality to be a helping hand to the man with a desire of sympathy, to help the fallen when it is not in their power to help themselves.

Corporate partners help UNICEF fund our programmes for children, advocate with us on their behalf, or facilitate our work through logistical, technical, research or supply support.

Before and during the first phase of the war his administration repeatedly maligned the UN but now, that Iraq has turned into a quagmire, it is asking the UN for help.

Sitting at home the way I do, I'd just love the hear from people. It'd be a great help in passing the time.

Humor can help you cope with the unbearable so that you can stay on the bright side of things until the bright side actually comes along.

It was an idea we had when Al was in the Senate - to organize and moderate an annual conference that would look at government policy through the lens of the family to help identify ways that the family can be supported and strengthened.

The government must do all it can to help reduce interest rates for business.

For me, romance isn't an over-the-top act. It's someone offering to help and to support me. Or if that person thinks I'm making the wrong decision, he'll tell me. I want him to be honest, because being that honest takes a lot of guts.

I've always thought that if Israel really wanted to solve the problem, they'd just start tomorrow and push right to the Jordan River, and anything in their way goes. They don't need America or someone else to help.

So many people always try to help me carry my luggage and help me do things I can do myself. If I can do it myself, I'm going to do it myself. I'm not going to let other people do it for me, and I think that's a big part of where I came from. I'm not a real prissy girl.

Doorman - a genius who can open the door of your car with one hand, help you in with the other, and still have one left for the tip.

We would certainly welcome the recipient nation to put their inspectors on our shores, if they wanted to make that investment to help protect that shipment that is outgoing.

Stop relying only on technology.Technology can help the qualified, well-trained human being but cannot replace him.

The older I get, the greater power I seem to have to help the world; I am like a snowball - the further I am rolled the more I gain.

Several million people inside and outside Afghanistan are destitute and desperately in need of help.