Andrew Motion People Quotations

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.

There are plenty of examples of people who have had busy lives out there in the world, trying to do good, and written very well at the same time.

If I were to die thinking that I'd written three poems that people might read after me, I would feel that I hadn't lived in vain. Great poets might expect the whole body of their work, but most of us - well, I would settle for a handful.

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

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

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

I don't want my poems to be sentimental, though I do acknowledge that sentiment is probably rather under-reported in a lot of people's feelings a lot of the time.

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.