Roger McGough quotes:

If I decide to be indecisive, that's my decision.

If I do a poetry reading I want people to walk out and say they feel better for having been there - not because you've done a comedy performance but because you're talking about your father dying or having young children, things that touch your soul.

If I decide to be indecisive, that's my decision

Whereas with poetry no one has to show anybody really, and you don't have to tell anyone you're doing it.

The general at the radar screenRubbed his hands with glee,And grinning pressed the buttonAnd started world war three.

The only problem with Haiku is that you just get started and then

If I do a poetry reading I want people to walk out and say they feel better for having been there - not because you've done a comedy performance but because you're talking about your father dying or having young children, things that touch your soul

Yes, you can feel very alone as a poet and you sometimes think, is it worth it? Is it worth carrying on? But because there were other poets, you became part of a scene. Even though they were very different writers, it made it easier because you were together.

We shouldn't have got married, really. Shouldn't have got married. Too young. Not ready for it.

People can put their best poems straight onto the web.

Yes, you can feel very alone as a poet and you sometimes think, is it worth it? Is it worth carrying on? But because there were other poets, you became part of a scene. Even though they were very different writers, it made it easier because you were together

Do people who wave at trains Wave at the driver, or at the train itself? Or, do people who wave at trains Wave at the passengers? Those hurtling strangers, The unidentifiable flying faces?

There's the moon trying to look romanticMoon's too old that's her troubleAren't we all?

I was put off by people at school - my cabbage wasn't as good as other people's, you know, so that put me off.

by thus keeping one pace ahead of myself I need never catch up with the truth.

Everyday I think about dying About disease, starvation, violence, terrorism, war, the end of the world. It helps keep my mind off things.

I could never begin a poem: 'When I am dead' In case it tempted Fate, and Fate gave way.

If the heart bleeds love, bare it, If the martyr's crown fits, wear it.

I'm terrified of switching the computer on because there are so many poems

Let me die a youngman's death not a clean and in-between- the-sheets, holy-water death.

The only problem

You will put on a dress of guilt and shoes with broken high ideals.