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.

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 was a typical farm boy. I liked the farm. I enjoyed the things that you do on a farm, go down to the drainage ditch and fish, and look at the crawfish and pick a little cotton.

Well, after I had the heart attack, it was a very simple choice. What the doctor told me I did and I did it religiously. I ate nothing but lean turkey breast or chicken breast or a piece of fish that was very lean. I mean I stayed away from everything.

Fishing is boring, unless you catch an actual fish, and then it is disgusting.

The only reason I ever played golf in the first place was so I could afford to hunt and fish.

I don't ask for an apology because it's only tomorrow's fish-and-chip paper.

Is this chicken, what I have, or is this fish? I know it's tuna, but it says 'Chicken of the Sea.'

I've caught fish as big as I am. I've caught marlin close to 300 pounds.

I'm going to gut you like a fish.

We sold a certain, steady amount of product for them and they could count on it. When it came time to ask for the money for this new record, they dropped us. It was fine with us. It was a dead fish.

Have you ever wondered why young people take to music like fish to water? Maybe it's because music is fun. Plan and simple. It opens up their minds to dream great dreams about where they can go and what they can do when they get older.

If you give a person a fish, they'll fish for a day. But if you train a person to fish, they'll fish for a lifetime.

Fish sticks and beef stew that millions of children love to hate.

What is a fish without a river? What is a bird without a tree to nest in? What is an Endangered Species Act without any enforcement mechanism to ensure their habitat is protected? It is nothing.

A great lie is like a great fish on dry land; it may fret and fling and make a frightful bother, but it cannot hurt you. You have only to keep still, and it will die of itself.

Neither fish, flesh nor good red herring.