I don't think poetry has a readership anywhere, really, that's that big.

Ted Hughes is dead. That's a fact, OK. Then there's something called the poetry of Ted Hughes. The poetry of Ted Hughes is more real, very soon, than the myth that Ted Hughes existed - because that can't be proven.

There is no one more deserving of a place in Poets' Corner. Ted Hughes introduced a new kind of landscape into English poetry. The most compelling aspect of his work was his intimacy with nature.

There's always a need at a critical time for poetry.

I don't believe that poetry is in danger because nobody wants to read it or appreciate it. There is a tremendous audience for it on any given day or night. You just have to know where to look.

Look at Allen Ginsberg. In poems like 'Kaddish' and 'Howl,' you can hear a cantor between the lines. It's fully alive, and I think that's what's missing in modern poetry. It's too dry and cerebral.

I always knew that was what I wanted to do - to write, particularly poetry.

I grew up in a place in which, if you learned poetry, you shouted it out. Boys would scream it out and perform it and do it and flourish it.

I don't feel like a celebrity. Poetry justifies celebrity. It's good to have respect for a poet.

The fate of poetry is to fall in love with the world.

I write plays and poetry at the same time, and I'm always refining, but I'm not obsessive about it. It's what I like to do, what I've always wanted to do.

I can be upset by malice. Most critics are very poor poets. Poetry is a craft that takes a lot to appreciate, and there are some critics who have no ear for it. An irresponsible critic can do a lot of psychic damage, but eventually, they don't affect your work.

I go back to St. Lucia, and the exhilaration I feel is not simply the exhilaration of homecoming and of nostalgia. It is almost an irritation of feeling: 'Well, you never got it right. Now you have another chance. Maybe you can try and look harder.'

The English language is nobody's special property. It is the property of the imagination: it is the property of the language itself.

All of the Antilles, every island, is an effort of memory: every mind, every racial biography culminating in amnesia and fog. Pieces of sunlight through the fog and sudden rainbows, arcs-en-ciel. That is the effort, the labour of the Antillean imagination, rebuilding its gods from bamboo frames, phrase by phrase.

When a child's mind develops and is heading in a certain direction, we murder that mentality, we murder that imagination, by saying, 'Now, that is all well and good, but now sit down and start to study.'

Beauty is only skin deep, and the world is full of thin skinned people.

That money talks, I'll not deny, I heard it once: It said, 'Goodbye'.

Until Eve arrived, this was a man's world.

Politics, it seems to me, for years, or all too long, has been concerned with right or left instead of right or wrong.

I'm not super-polite or civil - I try to be civil, but I'm not into Seattle's niceties, and I'm not hugely wired into Seattle's natural beauty.

I'm a sucker for sports movies.

I think the core of fans' relationship is one that vacillates schizophrenically and mercurially from reverence to resentment. Fans fetishize the players' athletic genius and both deify it and demonize it; witness the way awe turns into anger whenever a player holds out or flips off the offensive coordinator.

Even in decline, a virtuous man increases the beauty of his behavior. A burning stick, though turned to the ground, has its flame drawn upwards.

When many work together for a goal, Great things may be accomplished. It is said a lion cub was killed By a single colony of ants.

I think that beauty can injure you to death. It can cause an injury that can never be cured. Or it can so traumatise you, your life changes direction. The beauty of the harmony of nature that is forever lost, or a daily rite that you perform, or diving into the sea for a swim. Those experiences are going to mark you.

When the soul looks out of its body, it should see only beauty in its path. These are the sights we must hold in mind, in order to move to a higher place.

The sheer sensory experience of San Francisco is unlike anywhere else. Not just the physical beauty, but the textures, the feel, the wind, the ocean. It's a monumental feeling unrivaled by anywhere else. Its a world class, gorgeous city. And the coffee is great.

With 'The Keep,' I began with a theory about pitting the isolated disconnection of the gothic realm against present-day hyperconnectedness. I emerged feeling that the gothic genre is all about hyperconnectedness - the possibility of disembodied communication - and that we now live in a kind of permanently gothic state.

I write with pen and paper, my first draft, on legal pads.

Proust, my big inspiration for 'Goon Squad,' uses music a lot in his novel, both in terms of plot and structure. I liked the idea of doing the same thing, which is one reason I structured 'Goon Squad' as a record album, with an A side and a B side, that's built around the contrasting sounds of the individual numbers in it.

I'm partial to epic poetry, which might be surprising given that I don't write poetry at all. The combination of rollicking storytelling with musical language seems to me the highest achievement.

When I pick up a book that's, you know, wreathed in laurels, I expect a lot, and that doesn't give the book its best chance to shine.

The beauty of America is that I don't have to deny my past to affirm my present. No one does. We can love this nation like a parent and still embrace our ancestral home like cherished grandparents.

In this life, you should read everything you can read. Taste everything you can taste. Meet everyone you can meet. Travel everywhere you can travel. Learn everything you can learn. Experience everything you can experience.

I guess a psychiatrist would say there's some good to the venting process, but it does also promote an attitude of saying, 'Hey there's nothing wrong with being filled with hate; there's so much of it around.' I don't like that.

I have no plans, and no plans to plan.

Barack Obama is probably one of the brightest in terms of sheer intelligence... also probably the best orator we've ever had as a president.

I love immigrants. Legal, illegal - they're not to be despised.

You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.

The biggest aggravation in the Arab world, the biggest reason for their anger toward us and the creation of those suicide terrorists, is Israel and the difficulty with the Palestinian issue.

David Robinson chose to stay at Navy. He talked about commitment, loyalty and values. I wonder how many of us would choose these virtues rather than the chance of becoming a millionaire, especially if you were a college sophomore when you had to make that choice.

I have been honoured to serve the whales, dolphins, seals - and all the other creatures on this Earth. Their beauty, intelligence, strength, and spirit have inspired me.

I've had a lot of disappointments. I think my biggest disappointment is the failure of elected officials to make good on their promises in regards to the environment or anything else, really. I have very little faith in politicians.

Sometimes we are separated by differences, and sometimes we are united by common ideals of respect and compassion.

Follow your dreams and use your natural-born talents and skills to make this a better world for tomorrow.

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society recognizes that the deaths of four sealers is a tragedy, but Sea Shepherd also recognizes that the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of seal pups is an even greater tragedy.

I'm thankful to have time to write.

Taiwan gives a lot of foreign aid to Costa Rica, so it looks like they are basically buying the right to fish, even though it's not legal.

Whales are killed today to supply the limited demand for whale meat or to be used in pet foods or as fodder for fur-bearing animals used in the fur trade.