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Poets go through a very tough apprenticeship in the use of words.

I always thought of myself as a kind of literary bureaucrat. And that was never going to be enough for me.

You're more likely to finish a book you enjoy, than one that feels like literary drudgery.

With poets, the choice of words is invariably more telling than the story line; that's why the best of them dread the thought of their biographies being written.

In the old days of literature, only the very thick-skinned - or the very brilliant - dared enter the arena of literary criticism. To criticise a person's work required equal measures of erudition and wit, and inferior critics were often the butt of satire and ridicule.

I think poets are much more dramatic, more theatrical than fiction writers.

Good authors, too, who once knew better words now only use four-letter words writing prose... anything goes.

I think what matters most in literary work is the context, not the text.

If literature isn't everything, it's not worth a single hour of someone's trouble.