91 Quotes by Carol Ann Duffy

When you have a child, your previous life seems like someone else's. It's like living in a house and suddenly finding a room you didn't know was there, full of treasure and light

I write quite a lot of sonnets, and I think of them almost as prayers: short and memorable, something you can recite.

Every day is a gift with a child, no matter what problems you have

Between 9am and 3pm is when I work most intensely

For me, poetry is the music of being human. And also a time machine by which we can travel to who we are and to who we will become.

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 I had inspirational English teachers, Miss Scriven and Mr. Walker, and they liked us to learn poems by heart, which I found I loved doing.

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.

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.

I'll be left writing picture books and fairy tales