Science has always been my preoccupation and when you think a breakthrough is possible it is terribly exciting.

But because we live in an age of science we have a preoccupation with corroborating our myths.

Today's preoccupation with physical theories of everything takes a wrong turn from the purpose of science - to question all things relentlessly. Modern physics has become like Swift's kingdom of Laputa flying absurdly on an island above the earth and indifferent to what is beneath.

Much of today's public anxiety about science is the apprehension that we may forever be overlooking the whole by an endless obsessive preoccupation with the parts.

I wanted to reimagine the role in a way that was respectful of its traditional responsibilities but made them part of a wider pattern of poetry about national incidents events preoccupations and to spend a great deal of time going to schools trying to demystify poetry.

Preoccupation with money is the great test of small natures but only a small test of great ones.

The passionate controversies of one era are viewed as sterile preoccupations by another for knowledge alters what we seek as well as what we find.

What is the thread of western civilization that distinguished its course in history? It has to do with the preoccupation of western man with his outward command and his sense of superiority.

Idle people are often bored and bored people unless they sleep a lot are cruel. It is not accident that boredom and cruelty are great preoccupations in our time.