When I get depressed, I try to get something for the terrible sadness that comes over me and create something in terms of poetry.

I can't stand being late. I try to be professional. I try not to let people down. But people let me down. That's why I don't rely on anyone to call me. That's why I have clocks as well as people. I have to be able to call myself; it's the only way to be sure.

You couldn't enclose people in institutions or hospitals or almshouses in the way the Victorians managed to do. India was too big. Seeing the suffering people was terrible, but I think I was more distraught at the needless cruelty to so many animals.

The experience of being in the Army changed my whole life; I never believed that an organization such as ours could ever go to war, leave alone win it. It was, as Yeats remarked of the Easter Rising, 'A terrible beauty.'

All I ask is the chance to prove that money can't make me happy.

My Father had a profound influence on me. He was a lunatic.