"I get up, go and get a coffee, and go do the crossword - I'm loyal to one particular paper, the 'Guardian' - and that's my idea of a perfect morning."

"I love the way you can fall in love with a piece of literature how words alone can get your heart doing that."

"I know there are lots of positives in the evolution of technology, but I also think it will be responsible for the end of a unique character, of a specific kind of geographical culture. The world is getting so small, and mass production is getting so big. Everything is in danger of becoming the same."

"I've been quite fascinated by the relative insignificance of human existence, the shortness of life. We might as well be a letter in a word in a sentence on a page in a book in a library in a city in one country in this enormous universe! And that kind of fear and insignificance has kept me awake at night."

"Lapped in poetry, wrapped in the picturesque, armed with logical sentences and inalienable words."

"So now I have a collection of poetry by Aaron Neville and I give it to people I want to share it with. I'd like to publish it someday."

"Poetry is thoughts that breathe, and words that burn."

"The art of mastering life is the prerequisite for all further forms of expression, whether they are paintings, sculptures, tragedies, or musical compositions."