Serious poetry deals with the fundamental conflicts that cannot be logically resolved: we can state the conflicts rationally but reason does not relieve us of them.

I cannot speak for more than an hour exclusively about poetry. At that point life itself takes over again.

If you cannot be a poet be the poem.

We all know the stories about the Human Rights Act... about the illegal immigrant who cannot be deported because and I am not making this up he had a pet cat.

Dachshunds are ideal dogs for small children as they are already stretched and pulled to such a length that the child cannot do much harm one way or the other.

You are not going to get peace with millions of armed men. The chariot of peace cannot advance over a road littered with cannon.

You cannot make peace with terrorists. The normal dividing lines between war and peace do not apply.

We cannot have peace if we are only concerned with peace. War is not an accident. It is the logical outcome of a certain way of life. If we want to attack war we have to attack that way of life.

The link between peace and stability on the one hand and social and economic growth on the other is dialectic. Peace poverty and backwardness cannot mix in one region.

I cannot think of anything more difficult than to say something which would be worthy of this impressive and for me memorable occasion and of the ideals and purposes which inspired the Nobel Peace Award.