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.

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.

Andrew Motion

When Keats says: 'Axioms in philosophy are not axioms until they are proved upon our pulses', what he means is that we don't necessarily believe what a poem is saying if it comes out and tells us in an absolutely head-on, in-your-face way; we only believe it to be true if we feel it to be true.

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.

Andrew Motion

I'm also a great believer in the dream life; that while we're asleep, a deep subconscious connection is made about our profoundest fears, hopes, loves, losses, dreads and desires.

Andrew Motion

Thanks partly to the kind of poets that we now have and partly to funding, there's been a gigantic shift in the way poetry is perceived... Poems on the Underground, poets in schools, football clubs, zoos.

Andrew Motion

I wanted to reimagine the role, in a way that was respectful of its traditional responsibilities but made them part of a wider pattern of poetry about national incidents, events, preoccupations; and to spend a great deal of time going to schools trying to demystify poetry.

Andrew Motion

Those who say we should dismantle the role of Poet Laureate altogether, the trick they miss is that being called this thing, with the weight of tradition behind it, and with the association of the Royal family, does allow you to have conversations and to open doors, and wallets, for the good of poetry in a way that nothing else would allow.

Andrew Motion

I'm not much given to making shamanistic remarks about all this, but I'm a great believer in the dream life. If I can carry without spilling whatever it is that drips into my head in the night to my desk, then that's valuable.

Andrew Motion

You see the names of places roundabout? They're mine now, and I've turned them inside out.

Andrew Motion

But I can't and don't ever want to write bell-yanking confetti-tossing hat-throwing poems.

Andrew Motion

I get up at 5.30am, sluice myself and have two Weetabix and some mint tea, before starting to write by 6am.

Andrew Motion

I write between 5.30am and 9.00. That way, I hope I carry over something from my dream time.

Andrew Motion

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.

Andrew Motion

I am writing more than I have ever done. My life has come back to me in the most extraordinary way.

Andrew Motion

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.

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.

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.

Andrew Motion

I wish I'd been better able to resist the sense of obligation to write some of the poems I did. It's in the nature of commissioned work to be written too much from the side of your mind that knows what it's doing, which dries up the poetry.

Andrew Motion

Andrew Motion Quotes

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.

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.

When Keats says: 'Axioms in philosophy are not axioms until they are proved upon our pulses', what he means is that we don't necessarily believe what a poem is saying if it comes out and tells us in an absolutely head-on, in-your-face way; we only believe it to be true if we feel it to be true.

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.

I'm also a great believer in the dream life; that while we're asleep, a deep subconscious connection is made about our profoundest fears, hopes, loves, losses, dreads and desires.

Thanks partly to the kind of poets that we now have and partly to funding, there's been a gigantic shift in the way poetry is perceived... Poems on the Underground, poets in schools, football clubs, zoos.

I wanted to reimagine the role, in a way that was respectful of its traditional responsibilities but made them part of a wider pattern of poetry about national incidents, events, preoccupations; and to spend a great deal of time going to schools trying to demystify poetry.

I'm not much given to making shamanistic remarks about all this, but I'm a great believer in the dream life. If I can carry without spilling whatever it is that drips into my head in the night to my desk, then that's valuable.

You see the names of places roundabout? They're mine now, and I've turned them inside out.

But I can't and don't ever want to write bell-yanking confetti-tossing hat-throwing poems.

I get up at 5.30am, sluice myself and have two Weetabix and some mint tea, before starting to write by 6am.

I write between 5.30am and 9.00. That way, I hope I carry over something from my dream time.

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.

I am writing more than I have ever done. My life has come back to me in the most extraordinary way.

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.

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

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.

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.

I wish I'd been better able to resist the sense of obligation to write some of the poems I did. It's in the nature of commissioned work to be written too much from the side of your mind that knows what it's doing, which dries up the poetry.