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Without needing to be theoretically instructed, consciousness quickly realizes that it is the site of variously contending discourses.

Seamus Heaney

There’s never going to be a united Ireland, you know.
SEAMUS HEANEY

Country Known Unity Yourself
I believe we are put here to improve civilisation.
SEAMUS HEANEY

Believe Civilization Improvement
History says, ‘Don’t hope on this side of the grave.’
SEAMUS HEANEY

Grave History Hope Side
I’m not personally obsessed with death. At a certain age, the light that you live in is inhabited by the shades – it ’tis.
SEAMUS HEANEY

Death Light Myself Obsession Personally
A public expectation, it has to be said, not of poetry as such but of political positions variously approvable by mutually disapproving groups.
SEAMUS HEANEY

Expectation Group Poetry Position
I 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 HEANEY

Community Deep Feeling Joy Moments Myself
I’ve always associated the moment of writing with a moment of lift, of joy, of unexpected reward.
SEAMUS HEANEY

Association Expectation Moments Reward
If poetry and the arts do anything, they can fortify your inner life, your inwardness.
SEAMUS HEANEY

Art Life Poetry Yourself
Then as the years went on and my listening became more deliberate, I would climb up on an arm of our big sofa to get my ear closer to the wireless speaker.
SEAMUS HEANEY

Big Listening Myself Speaker
In the United States, in poetry workshops, it’s now quite a thing to make graduate students learn poems by heart.
SEAMUS HEANEY

Learning Poem Poetry Quite Student Workshop
I always had a superstitious fear of setting up a too well-designed writing place and then finding that the writing had absconded.
SEAMUS HEANEY

Design Fear Finding Myself Place Superstition Writing
I think childhood is, generally speaking, a preparation for disappointment.
SEAMUS HEANEY

Childhood Disappointment Preparation Thinking
I spend almost every morning with mail.
SEAMUS HEANEY

Mail Morning Myself
Anybody serious about poetry knows how hard it is to achieve anything worthwhile in it.
SEAMUS HEANEY

Achievement Hard Poetry Serious Worth
The poet is on the side of undeceiving the world.
SEAMUS HEANEY

Poet World
The problem as you get older, is that you become more self-aware. At the same time, you have to surprise yourself. There’s no way of arranging the surprise, so it is tricky.
SEAMUS HEANEY

Arrangement Aware Old Problem Trick

Without needing to be theoretically instructed, consciousness quickly realizes that it is the site of variously contending discourses.

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Without needing to be theoretically instructed, consciousness quickly realizes that it is the site of variously contending discourses.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Seamus Heaney Quotes