Andrew Motion quotes

I read 'Treasure Island' for the first time at university. And I started to notice then how unresolved some things were. Later, I realised that Stevenson was interested in sequels, and I wondered whether he would have gone back to it had he lived longer. (Andrew Motion)
Honor the miraculousness of the ordinary. View quote
Andrew Motion
In a fragile environment, we need to be aware of ourselves as members of a uniquely powerful species living among other species who are quite as interesting as we are but vulnerable to us because we are cleverer in more destructive ways. View quote
Andrew Motion
I'm ensuring my place in heaven. View quote
Andrew Motion
Like a lot of people, for a long time I thought that the road to hell is paved with bad sequels. View quote
Andrew Motion
I am a vigilant monarchist. I want to see things evolve. The direction the monarchy seems to be moving in - towards a more mainland-European model - is one I would feel sympathetic about. View quote
Andrew Motion
But in a lot of ways my poems are very conventional, and it's no big deal for me to write a poem in either free verse or strict form; modern poets can, and do, do both. View quote
Andrew Motion
I shall try to write a poem that is about the moment but doesn't betray things that are true to me as a poet. View quote
Andrew Motion
I am writing more than I have ever done. My life has come back to me in the most extraordinary way. View quote
Andrew Motion
Pretty much every weekend, my wife and I have the shall-we-live-in-the-country conversation. I suppose it's something to do with getting older and feeling I want to shed some of the things I've been doing for the last 20 years and go back to my roots. View quote
Andrew Motion
Pretty much the day I stopped being laureate, the poems that had been few and far between came back to me, like birds in the evening nesting in a tree. (Andrew Motion)
But I can't and don't ever want to write bell-yanking confetti-tossing hat-throwing poems. View quote
Andrew Motion
I want to write poems which are very emotional, but I would have some hesitation in saying I want to write poems which are sentimental. View quote
Andrew Motion
I like eating out. I like buying beautiful paintings and being surrounded by beautiful things. I have to finance that life. I can barely afford a pension scheme because I don't make enough money. View quote
Andrew Motion
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. View quote
Andrew Motion
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. View quote
Andrew Motion
I think it is interesting to think about the absolute animal relish young people have for rhythm and rhyme. View quote
Andrew Motion
I'm an early bird, partly because I like to have some quiet time and partly because by 9am emails begin arriving, the phone starts ringing and I have dragons to kill of one sort or another. View quote
Andrew Motion
I deeply adored my mum. She was an extraordinary person, even for the prejudice I'm likely to have. She was beautiful, amusing, a tremendous elaborator of things into comic proportions and extravagant in her imagination. View quote
Andrew Motion
Poems are a hotline to our hearts, and we forget this emotional power at our peril. View quote
Andrew Motion
But Wordsworth is the poet I admire above all others. (Andrew Motion)
I write between 5.30am and 9.00. That way, I hope I carry over something from my dream time. View quote
Andrew Motion
Each sudden gust of light explains itself as flames, but neither they, nor even bombs redoubled on the hills tonight can quite include me in their fear. View quote
Andrew Motion
I get up at 5.30am, sluice myself and have two Weetabix and some mint tea, before starting to write by 6am. View quote
Andrew Motion
By day the appalling loose beauty of prowling floes: lions' heads, dragons, crucifix-wrecks, and a thing like a blown rose. View quote
Andrew Motion