“ I have piles of poetry books in the bathroom, on the stairs, everywhere. The only way to write poetry is to read it. Carol Ann Duffy
“ Poetry, above all, is a series of intense moments - its power is not in narrative. I'm not dealing with facts, I'm dealing with emotion. Carol Ann Duffy
“ If I felt, in the event of a royal wedding, inspired to write about people coming together in marriage or civil partnership, I would just be grateful to have an idea for the poem. And if I didn't, I'd… Carol Ann Duffy
“ Christmas is taken very seriously in this household. I believe in Father Christmas, and there's no way I'd do anything to undermine that belief. Carol Ann Duffy
“ I grew up in a bookless house - my parents didn't read poetry, so if I hadn't had the chance to experience it at school I'd never have experienced it. But I loved English, and I was very lucky in that… Carol Ann Duffy
“ You can find poetry in your everyday life, your memory, in what people say on the bus, in the news, or just what's in your heart. Carol Ann Duffy
“ I think poetry can help children deal with the other subjects on the curriculum by enabling them to see a subject in a new way. Carol Ann Duffy
“ The moment of inspiration can come from memory, or language, or the imagination, or experience - anything that makes an impression forcibly enough for language to form. Carol Ann Duffy
“ It's always good when women win things in fiction because it tends to be more male-dominated, unlike poetry, which is more equal. Carol Ann Duffy
“ Auden said poetry makes nothing happen. But I wonder if the opposite could be true. It could make something happen. Carol Ann Duffy
“ But life, they said, means life. Dying inside.The Devil was evil, mad, but I was the Devil's wifewhich made me worse. I howled in my cell.If the Devil is gone then how could this be hell? Carol Ann Duffy
“ I'm not the first or the lastto stand on a hillock,watching the man she marriedprove to the worldhe's a total, utter, absolute, Grade A pi Carol Ann Duffy
“ But behind each player sttod a line of ghosts unable to win. Eve. Ashputtel. Marilyn Monroe. Rapunzel slashing wildly at her hair. Bessie Smith unloved and down and out. Bluebeard's wives, Henry VIII'… Carol Ann Duffy
“ Then he started his period.One week in bed.Two doctors in.Three painkillers four times a day.And later a letter to the powers-that-bedemanding full-paid menstrual leave twelve weeks per year. Carol Ann Duffy
“ Give me, you said, on our very first night,the forest. I rose from the bed and went out,and when I returned, you listened, enthralled,to the shadowy story I told.Give me the river,you asked the next n… Carol Ann Duffy
