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I’ve always associated the moment of writing with a moment of lift, of joy, of unexpected reward.

Seamus Heaney

One doesn’t want one’s identity coerced.
SEAMUS HEANEY

Identity Oneself
I think childhood is, generally speaking, a preparation for disappointment.
SEAMUS HEANEY

Childhood Disappointment Preparation Thinking
Even if the last move did not succeed, the inner command says move again.
SEAMUS HEANEY

Command Move Success
I’m a firm believer in learning by heart.
SEAMUS HEANEY

Believe Heart Learning
If 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 HEANEY

Dimension Ghost People Pleasant Quiet Training Yourself
I think of Dermot Healy as the heir to Patrick Kavanagh.
SEAMUS HEANEY

Myself Thinking
In a way, Anglo-Saxon poetry cannot be translated.
SEAMUS HEANEY

Poetry Translation
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

Expectation Experiment Myself Poetry Reason
In poetry, everything can be faked but the intensity of utterance.
SEAMUS HEANEY

Fake Intense Poetry Utter
Write whatever you like!
SEAMUS HEANEY

Advice Writing
Poetry is what we do to break bread with the dead.
SEAMUS HEANEY

Break Death Poetry
My point is there’s a hidden Scotland in anyone who speaks the Northern Ireland speech. It’s a terrific complicating factor, not just in Northern Ireland, but Ireland generally.
SEAMUS HEANEY

Complication Factor Myself Point Talk
I suppose you could say my father’s world was Thomas Hardy and my mother’s D.H. Lawrence.
SEAMUS HEANEY

Father Myself World
The faking of feelings is a sin against the imagination.
SEAMUS HEANEY

Deep Fake Feeling Imagination Sin
The kind of poet who founds and reconstitutes values is somebody like Yeats or Whitman – these are public value-founders.
SEAMUS HEANEY

Finding Kind Poet Public Value
I spend almost every morning with mail.
SEAMUS HEANEY

Mail Morning Myself

I’ve always associated the moment of writing with a moment of lift, of joy, of unexpected reward.

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I’ve always associated the moment of writing with a moment of lift, of joy, of unexpected reward.

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Popular Authors

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