“An aria in an opera - Handel's 'Ombra mai fu,' for example - gets alon...” — James Fenton Quote

“An aria in an opera - Handel's 'Ombra mai fu,' for example - gets along with an incredibly small number of words and ideas and a large amount of variation and repetition. That's the beauty of it. It's not taxing to the listener's intelligence because if you haven't heard it the first time round, it'll come around again.”

“God, A Poem”

“My feeling is that poetry will wither on the vine if you don't regularly come back to the simplest fundamentals of the poem: rhythm, rhyme, simple subjects - love, death, war.”

“For example, Americans seem reluctant to take on Shakespeare because you don't think you're very good at it - which is rubbish. You're missing out here.”

“When I didn't do 'Runaround Sue' on the 'Ed Sullivan Show,' for example, I didn't listen to my inner voice. I should have.”

“I can't, for example, Google myself, because I am very sensitive.”