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Seamus Heaney
13 quotes
“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.”
Seamus Heaney (1939–2013) first seen 1966 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Digging", line 25, from Death of a Naturalist (1966).
“God is a foreman with certain definite views Who orders life in shifts of work and leisure.”
Seamus Heaney (1939–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Human beings suffer, they torture one another, they get hurt and get hard. No poem or play or song can fully right a wrong inflicted or endured.”
Seamus Heaney (1939–2013) first seen 1990 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Doubletake" from The Cure at Troy (1990) - The Cure at Troy excerpts
“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.”
Seamus Heaney (1939–2013) first seen 1990 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Doubletake", from The Cure at Troy (1990)
“Call the miracle self-healing: The utter self-revealing double-take of feeling. If there's fire on the mountain Or lightning and storm And a god speaks from the sky That means someone is hearing the outcry and the birth-cry of new life at its term.”
Seamus Heaney (1939–2013) first seen 1990 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Doubletake", from The Cure at Troy (1990)
“Here is the great paradox of poetry and of the imaginative arts in general. Faced with the brutality of the historical onslaught, they are practically useless. Yet they verify our singularity, they strike out the ore of self which lies at the base of every individuated life. In one sense the efficacy of poetry is nil – no lyric has ever stopped a tank. In another sense it is unlimited. It is like the writing in the sand in the face of which accusers and accused are left speechless and renewed.”
Seamus Heaney (1939–2013) first seen 1978 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Government of the Tongue", in The Government of the Tongue: selected prose, 1978-1987 (1989).
“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.”
Seamus Heaney (1939–2013) first seen 1995 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From Nobel Prize for Literature speech 1995
“The writing of certain poems took me to the bottom of myself, something inchoate but troubled. [...] The Troubles, you might say, had muddied the waters, but I felt these poems ["The Guttural Muse" and others] arrived from an older, deeper, cleaner spring.”
Seamus Heaney (1939–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I don't mean sound as decoration or elaboration, but the actual cadence that moves the thing along.”
Seamus Heaney (1939–2013) first seen 2009 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Stepping Stones: interviews with Seamus Heaney by Dennis O'Driscoll, Faber and Faber, 2009.
“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.”
Seamus Heaney (1939–2013) first seen 1975 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Whatever You Say, Say Nothing", line 57, from North (1975).
“I rhyme To see myself, to set the darkness echoing.”
Seamus Heaney (1939–2013) first seen 1965 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Personal Helicon", line 19, from Eleven Poems (1965).
“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.”
Seamus Heaney (1939–2013) first seen 1983 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: An Open Letter (1983), p. 9.
“Don't be afraid.”
Seamus Heaney (1939–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Marie Koré: “Don’t back down from such little things”, By Fanny Pigeaud, retrieved on August 8, 2023
Also quoted by: Marie Koré