Wendy Cope

The interesting thing is that you don't often meet a poet who doesn't have a sense of humour, and some of them do keep it out of their poems because they're afraid of being seen as light versifiers.

I've said what I'm prepared to say in my poems, and then journalists think that you're going to tell them a whole lot more.

I've never been more famous than I was, suddenly, in 1986.

I like a quiet life.

I think it's a question which particularly arises over women writers: whether it's better to have a happy life or a good supply of tragic plots.

I was single for a long time and felt very much alone in the world, and talk of family values upset me very much at that phase in my life, because I used to think: 'What about people like me?'

There is some humour in 'Family Values.' I don't want everyone to think it's not going to make them laugh. But there are quite a lot of poems there that aren't funny at all.

Possibly I've become less funny as I've been happier.

In my case, the long gaps between my books have got quite a lot to do with lack of confidence. A lot of the time when I'm not writing I start thinking I can't do it.

Bloody Christmas, here again, let us raise a loving cup, peace on earth, goodwill to men, and make them do the washing up.