Seamus Heaney quotes

The end of art is peace. (Seamus Heaney)
There is risk and truth to yourselves and the world before you. View quote
Seamus Heaney
Anyone with gumption and a sharp mind will take the measure of two things: what's said and what's done. View quote
Seamus Heaney
I have begun to think of life as a series of ripples widening out from an original center. View quote
Seamus Heaney
God is a foreman with certain definite views Who orders life in shifts of work and leisure. View quote
Seamus Heaney
I've always associated the moment of writing with a moment of lift, of joy, of unexpected reward. View quote
Seamus Heaney
But that citizen's perception was also at one with the truth in recognizing that the very brutality of the means by which the IRA were pursuing change was destructive of the trust upon which new possibilities would have to be based. View quote
Seamus Heaney
If you have the words, there's always a chance that you'll find the way. View quote
Seamus Heaney
I rhyme To see myself, to set the darkness echoing. View quote
Seamus Heaney
The writing of certain poems (eg 'The Guttural Muse and others)took me to the bottom of myself, something inchoate but troubled, you might say I had muddied the waters, but I felt these poems arrived from an older, deeper, cleaner spring. View quote
Seamus Heaney
The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge Through living roots awaken in my head. But I've no spade to follow men like them. Between my finger and my thumb The squat pen rests. I'll dig with it. (Seamus Heaney)
Is there life before death? That's chalked up In Ballymurphy. Competence with pain, Coherent miseries, a bite and a sup, We hug our little destiny again. View quote
Seamus Heaney
Don't be afraid. View quote
Seamus Heaney
It is always better to avenge dear ones than to indulge in mourning. For every one of us, living in this world means waiting for our end. Let whoever can win glory before death. When a warrior is gone, that will be his best and only bulwark. View quote
Seamus Heaney
History says don't hope On this side of the grave. But then, once in a lifetime The longed for tidal wave Of justice can rise up And hope and history rhyme. View quote
Seamus Heaney
If poetry and the arts do anything, they can fortify your inner life, your inwardness. View quote
Seamus Heaney
The aim of poetry and the poet is finally to be of service, to ply the effort of the individual into the larger work of the community as a whole. View quote
Seamus Heaney
I shall gain glory or die. View quote
Seamus Heaney
My poetry journey into the wilderness of language was a journey where each point of arrival turned out to be a stepping stone rather than a destination. View quote
Seamus Heaney
I don't mean sound as decoration or elaboration, but the actual cadence that moves tge thing along. View quote
Seamus Heaney
Walk on air against your better judgement. (Seamus Heaney)
All I know is a door into the dark. View quote
Seamus Heaney
Between my finger and my thumb The squat pen rests; snug as a gun. View quote
Seamus Heaney
The main thing is to write for the joy of it. Cultivate a work-lust that imagines its haven like your hands at night dreaming the sun in the sunspot of a breast. You are fasted now, light-headed, dangerous. Take off from here. View quote
Seamus Heaney
Sink every impulse like a bolt. Secure The bastion of sensation. Do not waver Into language. Do not waver in it. View quote
Seamus Heaney