The overall view of the human genome project has been one of great excitement and positive press but there are people who have concerns that are quite reasonable and they are frightened of things they don't understand.

Music and songs are written at different periods of time at different times in your life. They reflect the feelings you have and to be honest I quite like having positive emotions.

People don't really understand but having people stare and point and take pictures even if it is in a positive framework is quite isolating there's no two ways about it. You feel a little bit you know freakish.

Everyone in L.A. is very positive and upbeat whereas London can get quite miserable at times.

Frustration although quite painful at times is a very positive and essential part of success.

We're seeing quite a lot of people who really would like a return to class-based politics.

I always had a long-term view of going into politics so I suppose I was always careful. I mean I got offered all these rinky dink tax deals but I always paid my taxes. I am naturally quite conservative.

I'm not involved in politics any more and they're quite right.

But I think it's quite clear in my work that my orientation isn't political or doesn't come out of modern politics.

Politics is almost as exciting as war and quite as dangerous. In war you can only be killed once but in politics many times.

I began the way nearly everybody I ever heard of - I began writing poetry. And I find that to be quite usual with writers their trying their hand at poetry.

PC stuff just lowers the general acceptance of good work and replaces it with bogus poetry that celebrates values that in themselves are probably quite worthy.

And I know I'm supposed to feel guilty for wanting people to buy my books... and books in general? Novels and poetry they belong to the realm of art. How dirty of us to try to hawk art! But after a decade of hand-wringing and apologies I can't quite muster the guilt anymore.

I'm quite sure that most writers would sustain real poetry if they could but it takes devotion and talent.

It is true that short forms of poetry have been cultivated in the Far East more than in modern Europe but in all European literature short forms of poetry are to be found - indeed quite as short as anything in Japanese.

Traditional matter must be glorified since it would be easier to listen to the re-creation of familiar stories than to quite new and unexpected things the listeners we must remember needed poetry chiefly as the re-creation of tired hours.

As things are and as fundamentally they must always be poetry is not a career but a mug's game. No honest poet can ever feel quite sure of the permanent value of what he has written: He may have wasted his time and messed up his life for nothing.

Poetry is an orphan of silence. The words never quite equal the experience behind them.

Each word bears its weight so you have to read my poems quite slowly.

Hamas the opponents of Arafat the opponents of peace urged a boycott of the election and yet there was an 85 percent turnout where Hamas is supposed to be strong. Isn't that really quite incredible?

I know that. I'm having a ball. I'm not slap happy. I'm just filled up with joy and with peace and with all kinds of things that have eluded me for quite a few years. And they're back and they're thriving.

The minute you got the Nobel Peace Prize things that I said yesterday with nobody paying too much attention I say the same things after I got it - oh! It was quite crucial for people and it helped our morale because apartheid did look invincible.

During times of war hatred becomes quite respectable even though it has to masquerade often under the guise of patriotism.

Ah the power of two. There's nothing quite like it. Especially when it comes to paying utility bills parenting cooking elaborate meals purchasing a grown-up bed jumping rope and lifting heavy machinery. The world favours pairs. Who wants to waste the wood building an ark for singletons?