Part of my gradual education of myself has been to think that there is a deep relationship between the nature of the creature and the worth of the art.
Seamus HeaneyIn off the moors, down through the mist beams, god-cursed Grendel came greedily loping.
Seamus HeaneyMemory has always been fundamental for me. In fact, remembering what I had forgotten is the way most of the poems get started.
Seamus HeaneyHope is not optimism, which expects things to turn out well, but something rooted in the conviction that there is good worth working for.
Seamus HeaneyThe appointment [in Harvard] gave me economic safety, writerly support, and intellectual self-respectplus eight months to myself every year.
Seamus HeaneyThe whole relationship between a writer's spiritual/emotional condition and the kind of wordstuff and form-making that's going on in his work is an interesting one. When I was an undergraduate, there was a glib notion around that there was no reason to suppose a bad man could be a good writer.
Seamus Heaney