Andrew Motion

“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.”

“I'm ensuring my place in heaven.”

“The best public poems aren't necessarily those that go at the subject like a bull at a gate.”

“In a fragile environment, we need to be aware of ourselves as members of a uniquely powerful species living among other species who are quite as interesting as we are but vulnerable to us because we are cleverer in more destructive ways.”

“Keats writes better about poems than anybody I've ever read. The things that he says about what he wants his own poems to be are the ideals that I share.”