Seamus Heaney Quotes

Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.

The main thing is to write
for the joy of it. Cultivate a work-lust
that imagines its haven like your hands at night
dreaming the sun in the sunspot of a breast.
You are fasted now, light-headed, dangerous.
Take off from here.

I rhyme… to see myself, to set the darkness echoing.

Sink every impulse like a bolt. Secure
The bastion of sensation. Do not waver
Into language. Do not waver in it.

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

If you have the words, there's always a chance that you'll find the way.

All I know is a door into the dark

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.

I can't think of a case where poems changed the world, but what they do is they change people's understanding of what's going on in the world.

There is risk and truth to yourselves and the world before you.

I suppose I'm saying that defiance is actually part of the lyric job

He sits, strong and blunt as a Celtic cross,
Clearly used to silence and an armchair:
Tonight the wife and children will be quiet
At slammed door and smoker's cough in the hall.

Believe that a further shore is reachable from here.

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.