Quotes from Ted Hughes

The Bush administration doesn't particularly like public participation. It makes them look bad.

And the elephant sings deep in the forest-maze About a star of deathless and painless peace But no astronomer can find where it is.

Prose, narratives, etcetera, can carry healing. Poetry does it more intensely.

The progress of any writer is marked by those moments when he manages to outwit his own inner police system.

There is no better way to know us Than as two wolves, come separately to a wood.

Nobody wanted your dance, Nobody wanted your strange glitter, your floundering Drowning life and your effort to save yourself, Treading water, dancing the dark turmoil, Looking for something to give.

You are who you choose to be.

The jaws' hooked clamp and fangs Not to be changed at this date; A life subdued to its instrument.

The dreamer in her Had fallen in love with me and she did not know it. That moment the dreamer in me Fell in love with her and I knew it

The world's decay where the wind's hands have passed, And my head, worn out with love, at rest In my hands, and my hands full of dust.

It took the whole of Creation To produce my foot, my each feather: Now I hold Creation in my foot.

I shall also take you forth and carve our names together in a yew tree, haloed with stars.

And you will never know what a battle I fought to keep the meaning of my words Solid with the world we were making.

Haven't you heard of the music of the spheres?" asked the dragon. "It's the music that space makes to itself. All the spirits inside all the stars are singing. I'm a star spirit. I sing too. The music of the spheres is what makes space so peaceful.

You were overloaded. I said nothing. I said nothing. The stone man made soup. The burning woman drank it.

If you're all so peaceful up there, how did you get such greedy and cruel ideas? The dragon was silent for a long time after this question. And at last he said: It just came over me. I don't know why. It just came over me, listening to the battling shouts and the war-cries of the earth - I got excited, I wanted to join in.

In the beginning was Scream Who begat Blood Who begat Eye Who begat Fear Who begat Wing Who begat Bone Who begat Granite Who begat Violet Who begat Guitar Who begat Sweat Who begat Adam Who begat Mary Who begat God Who begat Nothing Who begat Never Never Never Never Who begat Crow Screaming for Blood Grubs, crusts Anything Trembling featherless elbows in the nest's filth

To hatch a crow, a black rainbow Bent in emptiness over emptiness But flying

where are the gods the gods hate us the gods have run away the gods have hidden in holes the gods are dead of the plague they rot and stink too there never were any gods there's only death

You could become internationally famous - you're Gemini, and according to antique authority have a literary talent, which of course your letters prove.

He was his own leftover, the spat-out scrag. He was what his brain could make nothing of.

But the jewel you lost was blue.

One day God felt he ought to give his workshop a spring clean... It was amazing what ragged bits and pieces came from under his workbench as he swept. Beginnings of creatures, bits that looked useful but had seemed wrong, ideas he'd mislaid and forgotten... There was even a tiny lump of sun. He scratched his head. What could be done with all this rubbish?

So we found the end of our journey. So we stood, alive in the river of light, Among the creatures of light, creatures of light.