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" I only keep books that I like very much. Otherwise I'd throw them out. "

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" 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. "

" Anybody who writes doesn't like to be misunderstood. "

" 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. "

" I don't care whether a book is a first edition or not. I'm not a bibliophile in that word's natural sense. "

" 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. "

" When I talk of hearing a poet's voice speaking, I always think of it as in the presence of the man. "

" I'm very gregarious, but I love being in the hills on my own. "

" Well, I'm a light traveller. I chuck things away. "

" And if they haven't got poetry in them, there's nothing you can do that will produce it. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" But you'd have a job to find many of my poems which would seem to be very influenced by a particular person. "

" When I go fishing I like to know that there's nobody within five miles of me. "

" If I wrote a play with four characters every single one of them would talk like me regardless of age or sex. "

" 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. "

" I used to fish the Border rivers, but nowadays you have to queue up for a shot and I can't stand that. "

" I said I have no powers of invention. Well, I also have no powers of mimicry. "

" I used to have a great love for Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy, the big boys of the last century. "

" 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! "

" 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. "

" When I was asked to be Writer in Residence at Edinburgh I thought, you can't teach poetry. This is ridiculous. "

" And the second question, can poetry be taught? I didn't think so. "

" People haven't got the interest in long long works these days. A lack of interest which I share. "

" 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 very interested in American poetry for many years. Much less now. "

" I don't think of myself all the time. "

" And it's impossible for me to read Henry James. "