Authors — Quotes

Seamus Heaney Quotes: 8

I have always thought of poems as stepping stones in one's own sense of oneself. Every now and again, you write a poem that gives you self-respect and steadies your going a little bit farther out in the stream. At the same time, you have to conjure the next stepping stone because the stream, we hope, keeps flowing.
Even if the hopes you started out with are dashed, hope has to be maintained.
If you have the words, there's always a chance that you'll find the way.
Stepping Stones: Interviews with Seamus Heaney
It is always betterto avenge dear ones than to indulge in mourning.For every one of us, living in this worldmeans waiting for our end. Let whoever canwin glory before death. When a warrior is gone,that will be his best and only bulwark.
Beowulf
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
Between my finger and my thumb The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.
Opened Ground: Selected Poems, 1966-1996
All I know is a door into the dark
The main thing is to writefor the joy of it. Cultivate a work-lustthat imagines its haven like your hands at nightdreaming the sun in the sunspot of a breast.You are fasted now, light-headed, dangerous.Take off from here.
Station Island