I'm concentrating on the positive on all the wonderful things I'm doing now.

The wonderful Mozambican people have endured tremendous misery without losing their dignity and their positive outlook on life. Moreover they have not lost their will to progress and develop. Mozambique is a country where the people never surrendered.

I think especially in a world where you have so little say about what goes on in your life or in the politics of the world around you it is wonderful to go into that studio and tell yourself what to do.

Sometimes when I listen to fellow progressives I wonder if the only lesson we took away from the '04 elections is that politics is a word game.

When a Cabinet Minister who is sacked for telling lies is re-appointed in the face of every constitutional convention only for the same man to be sacked again from the same Cabinet for the same offence by the same Prime Minister no wonder the public are cynical about politics.

The 'democracy gap' in our politics and elections spells a deep sense of powerlessness by people who drop out do not vote or listlessly vote for the 'least worst' every four years and then wonder why after every cycle the 'least worst' gets worse.

Sometimes I wonder if we shall ever grow up in our politics and say definite things which mean something or whether we shall always go on using generalities to which everyone can subscribe and which mean very little.

I always liked the magic of poetry but now I'm just starting to see behind the curtain of even the best poets how they've used tried and tested craft to create the illusion. Wonderful feeling of exhilaration to finally be there.

That's a wonderful change that's taken place and so most poetry today is published if not directly by the person certainly by the enterprise of the poet himself working with his friends.

There is a wonderful Hungarian literature especially in lyric poetry.

I wonder if I ever thought of an ideal reader... I guess when I was in my 20s and in New York and maybe even in my early 30s I would write for my wife Janice... mainly for my poet friends and my wife who was very smart about poetry.

I was excited by what my painter friends were doing and they seemed to be interested in our poetry too and that was a wonderful little fizzy sort of world.

And my father was a comic. He could play any musical instrument. He loved to perform. He was a wonderfully comedic character. He had the ability to dance and sing and charm and analyze poetry.

Auden said poetry makes nothing happen. But I wonder if the opposite could be true. It could make something happen.

Poetry is always slightly mysterious and you wonder what is your relationship to it.

When you're going through something whether it's a wonderful thing like having a child or a sad thing like losing somebody you often feel like 'Oh my God I'm so overwhelmed I'm dealing with this huge thing on my own.' In fact poetry's a nice reminder that no everybody goes through it. These are universal experiences.

Poetry is a deal of joy and pain and wonder with a dash of the dictionary.

Don't accept your dog's admiration as conclusive evidence that you are wonderful.

I wonder if other dogs think poodles are members of a weird religious cult.

Give your dog or cat respect patience understanding and love. And if you just change to one vegetarian day a week that's a wonderful step that will save animal lives. It means you have chosen something kind instead of something cruel.

Home life's great man. The kids are great happy and healthy. I've reached this sort of wonderful precipice.

I feel very blessed to have two wonderful healthy children who keep me completely grounded sane and throw up on my shoes just before I go to an awards show just so I know to keep it real.

I mean you always want everybody to pat you on the back and tell you you're wonderful every time you do something I think that's human nature.

Nothing is too wonderful to be true if it be consistent with the laws of nature.