I'm not really one for fancy big words and poetry and the scriptwriters worked very hard on 'Paradise Lost' to translate it.

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

I'm not a writer. I think I can write short stories and poetry but film writing brilliant film writing is a talent - you can't just do it like that.

I don't think poetry is something that can be taught. We can encourage young writers but what you can't teach them is the very essence of poetry.

The decision to write in prose instead of poetry is made more by the readers than by writers. Almost no one is interested in reading narrative in verse.

I certainly derived my skills as a prose writer from my scrutiny of poetry and of the individual word. But schools don't do things like that anymore - tracking words down to their roots.

France is not poetic she even feels in fact a congenital horror of poetry. Among the writers who use verse those whom she will always prefer are the most prosaic.

One of my biggest pet peeves is that I just don't like it when characters do things that are funny to the writer but you don't know why they're doing it and it doesn't make any sense.

On Memorial Day I don't want to only remember the combatants. There were also those who came out of the trenches as writers and poets who started preaching peace men and women who have made this world a kinder place to live.

I cannot imagine any writer who would not fight for his peace and quiet.