Quotes By Author: seamus heaney

“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.”

“I suppose I’m saying that defiance is actually part of the lyric job”

“Since when,” he asked,”Are the first line and last line of any poemWhere the poem begins and ends?”

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

“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.”

“All I know is a door into the dark”

“History says, Don’t hopeOn this side of the grave,But then, once in a lifetimeThe longed-for tidal waveOf justice can rise up,And hope and history rhyme”