Don't be surprised if I demur, for, be advised my passport's green. Seamus Heaney More Quotes by Seamus Heaney More Quotes From Seamus Heaney It is always better to avenge dear ones than to indulge in mourning. For every one of us, living in this world means waiting for our end. Let whoever can win glory before death. When a warrior is gone, that will be his best and only bulwark. Seamus Heaney warriorwinningmean The most exhilarating for the writer and the reader, are gift-things-poems which arrive on their own energy, poems that in William Shakespeare's term "slip" from you. Seamus Heaney termreaderenergy Part of my gradual education of myself has been to think that there is a deep relationship between the nature of the creature and the worth of the art. Seamus Heaney deep-relationshipartthinking I've nothing against the Queen personally: I had lunch at the Palace once upon a time. Seamus Heaney lunchqueensonce-upon-a-time Publication is rather like pushing the boat out; then the boat/book turns into a melting ice floe and you have to conjure a second boat which again turns into a melting floe under your feet. All the stepping stones that you conjure disappear under the water behind you. Seamus Heaney icefeetbook Yet there are times when a deeper need enters, when we want the poem to be not only pleasurably right but compellingly wise, not only a surprising variation played upon the world, but a re-tuning of the world itself. Seamus Heaney variationwiseneeds Allow ourselves to do as Ram Dass said in his delicious phrase "Be Here Now." If you are here now you cannot fall into falsely constructed gender projections. Seamus Heaney ramsphrasesfall One of the very first poems I wrote was Docker That fist would drop a hammer on a Catholic and one of the sturdiest was Requiem for the Croppies, written 50 years after 1916 [the year of the Easter Rising]. Being responsible and what it means, what it demands, have indeed preoccupied me maybe too much. But this is it, this is the thing, this is what you're up against. Seamus Heaney eastermeanyears The Ireland I now inhabit is one that these Irish contemporaries have helped to imagine. Seamus Heaney irelandimagine My body was braille for the creeping influences. Seamus Heaney brailleinfluencebody Poetry cannot afford to lose its fundamentally self-delighting inventiveness, its joy in being a process of language as well as a representation of things in the world. Seamus Heaney selfjoyworld I suppose I did feel a certain public pressure always. Seamus Heaney certainpressurefeels The faking of feelings is a sin against the imagination. Seamus Heaney againstsinimaginationfeelings Your temperament is what you write with, but it's also how you deal with the world. Seamus Heaney yourhowyouworld I think childhood is, generally speaking, a preparation for disappointment. Seamus Heaney childhoodpreparationdisappointment In a way, Anglo-Saxon poetry cannot be translated. Seamus Heaney anglo-saxoncannotpoetryway Every time you read a poem aloud to yourself in the presence of others, you are reading it into yourself and them. Voice helps to carry words farther and deeper than the eye. Seamus Heaney wordsyourselfyoutime Poetry is more a threshold than a path. Seamus Heaney thanmorepoetrypath Anybody serious about poetry knows how hard it is to achieve anything worthwhile in it. Seamus Heaney hardachieveseriouspoetry The experiment of poetry, as far as I am concerned, happens when the poem carries you beyond where you could have reasonably expected to go. Seamus Heaney i-amgoyoupoetry
