I suffered from a quite severe speech impediment when I was young, and keeping a journal was part of the therapy.

Poets are accepted in Canada as practically nowhere else in the West because of their place in an officially supported and popularly endorsed Canadian culture. Yet, they are still bitter and argumentative, as poets elsewhere are, because they have no audience as such, only a sanctioned role in the cultural scheme of things.

The heart was always seen as the noblest of the internal organs as well as the most vital. The hearts of martyrs or future candidates for sainthood would be preserved, but never their livers, say, or the entrails - at least not on their own; it was either the heart by itself or the whole lot together.

I've been in relationships where we've said 'I love you' after two weeks.

I love Stevie Wonder for his sense of rapture in the music. He can swing through a zappy tune, lift your heart, or drift into a sad ballad with consummate ease.

What is marriage but prostitution to one man instead of many?

I regard the rights of men and women equal. In Love's fair realm, husband and wife are king and queen, sceptered and crowned alike, and seated on the self-same throne.