Seamus Heaney
61 quotes
Biography
"I have always thought of poems as stepping stones in one's own sense of oneself. Every now and again, you write a poem that gives you self-respect and steadies your going a little bit farther out in the stream. At the same time, you have to conjure the next stepping stone because the stream, we hope, keeps flowing."
"Even if the hopes you started out with are dashed, hope has to be maintained."
"If you have the words, there's always a chance that you'll find the way."
"It is always betterto avenge dear ones than to indulge in mourning.For every one of us, living in this worldmeans waiting for our end. Let whoever canwin glory before death. When a warrior is gone,that will be his best and only bulwark."
"History says, Don’t hopeOn this side of the grave,But then, once in a lifetimeThe longed-for tidal waveOf justice can rise up,And hope and history rhyme"
"Between my finger and my thumb The squat pen rests; snug as a gun."
"All I know is a door into the dark"
"The main thing is to writefor the joy of it. Cultivate a work-lustthat imagines its haven like your hands at nightdreaming the sun in the sunspot of a breast.You are fasted now, light-headed, dangerous.Take off from here."
"The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge Through living roots awaken in my head. But I've no spade to follow men like them. Between my finger and my thumb The squat pen rests. I'll dig with it."
"God is a foreman with certain definite views Who orders life in shifts of work and leisure."
"History says don't hope On this side of the grave. But then, once in a lifetime The longed for tidal wave Of justice can rise up And hope and history rhyme. So hope for a great sea-change on the far side of revenge. Believe that a further shore is reachable from here. Believe in miracles and cures and healing wells."
"My poetry journey into the wilderness of language was a journey where each point of arrival turned out to be a stepping stone rather than a destination."
"Is there life before death? That's chalked up In Ballymurphy. Competence with pain, Coherent miseries, a bite and a sup, We hug our little destiny again."
"I rhyme To see myself, to set the darkness echoing."
"Don't be surprised if I demur, for, be advised My passport's green. No glass of ours was ever raised To toast The Queen."
"För ett författarskap av lyrisk skönhet och etiskt djup, som lyfter fram vardagens mirakler och det levande förflutna."
"At home in Ireland, there's a habit of avoidance, an ironical attitude towards the authority figure."
"Whether it be a matter of personal relations within a marriage or political initiatives within a peace process, there is no sure-fire do-it-yourself kit."
"Whether it be a matter of personal relations within a marriage or political initiatives within a peace process, there is no sure-fire do-it-yourself kit."
"In fact, in lyric poetry, truthfulness becomes recognizable as a ring of truth within the medium itself."
"Poetry is always slightly mysterious, and you wonder what is your relationship to it."
"A public expectation, it has to be said, not of poetry as such but of political positions variously approvable by mutually disapproving groups."
"I credit poetry for making this space-walk possible."
"Manifesting that order of poetry where we can at last grow up to that which we stored up as we grew."
"The completely solitary self: that's where poetry comes from, and it gets isolated by crisis, and those crises are often very intimate also."