"Thanks partly to the kind of poets that we now have and partly to funding, there's been a gigantic shift in the way poetry is perceived... Poems on the Underground, poets in schools, football clubs, zoos."

"I'm not precisely saying that a really good board meeting at the MLA (Museums, Libraries and Archives Coucil) makes me want to go and write poetry, but there is a pleasure in doing that sort of thing well."

"More people are reading poetry now than at any time in the history of the human race."

"I deeply adored my mum. She was an extraordinary person, even for the prejudice I'm likely to have. She was beautiful, amusing, a tremendous elaborator of things into comic proportions and extravagant in her imagination."

"My father was totally Irish, and so I went to Ireland once. I found it to be very much like New York, for it was a beautiful country, and both the women and men were good-looking."

"My family... always had the value of the family table and these cultural influences of growing up."

"Back in Australia, I did foster care for sick cats for years, and I was always most successful with the animals when I was given two - a brother and sister."

"I was a shy, awkward sort of a boy and my father's frequent absences from home, along with my hero worship for him, made me even shyer."