Quotes By Andrew Motion

More people are reading poetry now than at any time in the history of the human race.

I'm not much given to making shamanistic remarks about all this, but I'm a great believer in the dream life. If I can carry without spilling whatever it is that drips into my head in the night to my desk, then that's valuable.

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.

If people connect me with the Romantics in general, they probably connect me most with Keats. But Wordsworth is the poet I admire above all others.

You see the names of places roundabout? They're mine now, and I've turned them inside out.

Poetry is at the centre of my life, too, emotionally speaking, and intellectually speaking - it's just that I'm one of those people who enjoy doing other stuff as well.

I think it is interesting to think about the absolute animal relish young people have for rhythm and rhyme.

I've found a different way to scent the air: already it's a by-word for despair.

I write between 5.30am and 9.00. That way, I hope I carry over something from my dream time.

When you're being looked at very hard, it's very hard to look back. And that made me stop paying attention to the world in a way that allowed me then to write about it.

I'm also a great believer in the dream life; that while we're asleep, a deep subconscious connection is made about our profoundest fears, hopes, loves, losses, dreads and desires.

Like a lot of people, for a long time I thought that the road to hell is paved with bad sequels.

I wanted to reimagine the role, in a way that was respectful of its traditional responsibilities but made them part of a wider pattern of poetry about national incidents, events, preoccupations; and to spend a great deal of time going to schools trying to demystify poetry.

I am writing more than I have ever done. My life has come back to me in the most extraordinary way.