The Heaneys were aristocrats, in the sense that they took for granted a code of behavior that was given and unspoken. Argumentation, persuasion, speech itself, for God’s sake, just seemed otiose and superfluous to them.
SEAMUS HEANEYThe Heaneys were aristocrats, in the sense that they took for granted a code of behavior that was given and unspoken. Argumentation, persuasion, speech itself, for God’s sake, just seemed otiose and superfluous to them.
SEAMUS HEANEYI always believed that whatever had to be written would somehow get itself written.
SEAMUS HEANEYI’ve been in the habit of helping people.
SEAMUS HEANEYAnyone born and bred in Northern Ireland can’t be too optimistic.
SEAMUS HEANEYManifesting that order of poetry where we can at last grow up to that which we stored up as we grew.
SEAMUS HEANEYIf you go into an underground train in London – probably anywhere, but chiefly in London – there’s that sense of almost entering a ghostly dimension. People are very still and quiet; they don’t exchange many pleasantries.
SEAMUS HEANEYI feel myself part of something. Not only being part of a community but part of an actual moment and a movement of Irish writing and art. That sense of being part of the whole thing is the deepest joy.
SEAMUS HEANEYEvery 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 HEANEYI came from a farming background, and my career was teaching.
SEAMUS HEANEYThe kind of poet who founds and reconstitutes values is somebody like Yeats or Whitman – these are public value-founders.
SEAMUS HEANEYMy father and mother had no sense of entitlement for their children.
SEAMUS HEANEYI would say that something important for me and for my generation in Northern Ireland was the 1947 Education Act, which allowed students who won scholarships to go on to secondary schools and thence to university.
SEAMUS HEANEYIn Northern Ireland, helicopters are not usually used to promote poetry.
SEAMUS HEANEYSonnet is about movement in a form.
SEAMUS HEANEYThe murder of Sean Brown hurt my soul.
SEAMUS HEANEYPoems that come swiftly are usually the ones that you keep.
SEAMUS HEANEY