Quotes by Carol Duffy

• Between 9am and 3pm is when I work most intensely.
• I write quite a lot of sonnets, and I think of them almost as prayers: short and memorable, something you can recite.
• Edinburgh is my favourite city. We'll be doing a lot of children's theatre and galleries.
• Every day is a gift with a child, no matter what problems you have.
• I think the dangers are different now. Our abuse of the planet and our resources is an anxiety.
• I'll be left writing picture books and fairy tales.
• 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.
• I write in that space between Ella's childhood and mine. I know it all sounds a bit sinister.
• It's always good when women win things in fiction because it tends to be more male-dominated, unlike poetry, which is more equal.
• Like the sand and the oyster, it's a creative irritant. In each poem, I'm trying to reveal a truth, so it can't have a fictional beginning.
• My prose is turgid, it just hasn't got any energy.
• Poetry and prayer are very similar.
• I still read Donne, particularly his love poems.
• 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.
• Poets deal in writing about feelings and trying to find the language and images for intense feelings.