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Quote by Seamus Heaney

“Publication is rather like pushing the boat out; then the boat/book turns into a melting ice floe and you have to conjure a second boat which again turns into a melting floe under your feet. All the stepping stones that you conjure disappear under the water behind you.”

Author

Seamus Heaney

Seamus Heaney was an Irish poet born on April 13, 1939, and passed away on August 30, 2013. He is renowned for his profound humanistic concerns and exquisite poetic skills, being one of the most influential poets of the 20th century. more

“The 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.”

Men Kind Reason Whole Spiritual Form Interesting Conditions Emotional Notion No Reason Good Writers Bad Man Undergraduate

Author:Seamus Heaney

“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.”

Thinking Has Beens Art Creatures Deep Relationship

Author:Seamus Heaney

“The most exhilarating for the writer and the reader, are gift-things-poems which arrive on their own energy, poems that in William Shakespeare's term "slip" from you.”

Energy Term Reader Slips Exhilarating

Author:Seamus Heaney

“A writer is not different from a reader, in that the common ragbag of orthodoxies and assumptions is what a poet has to work with as well.”

Wells Different Common Poet Reader Assumption Orthodoxy

Author:Seamus Heaney