My father was a creature of the archaic world, really. He would have been entirely at home in a Gaelic hill-fort. His side of the family, and the houses I associate with his side of the family, belonged to a traditional rural Ireland.


Seamus Heaney

  Email Quote to Friends   Link to Quote   Create Short URL  Publish Text About This Quote   Share on Facebook, Twitter, and more
  See Recommended Quotes For You

Related

You must save what you can of your life; you musn't lose it all simply because you've lost a part.
HENRY JAMES
She wasn't bitter. She was sad, though. But it was a hopeful kind of sad. The kind of sad that just ...
STEPHEN CHBOSKY
So, I guess we are who we are for alot of reasons. And maybe we'll never know most of them. But even...
STEPHEN CHBOSKY
I love my mom so much. I don't care if that's corny to say. I think on my next birthday, I'm going t...
STEPHEN CHBOSKY
We Are All Infinite
STEPHEN CHBOSKY
(All the grief she had suffered over her lifetime had moulded her face into a mask of eternal sadnes...
JEAN SASSON
You can't just sit there and put everyone's lives ahead of yours and think that counts as love. You ...
STEPHEN CHBOSKY
I saw other people there. Old men sitting alone. Young girls with blue eye shadow and awkward jaws. ...
STEPHEN CHBOSKY
That one moment when you know you are not a sad story. You are ALIVE.
STEPHAN CHBOSKY
Somos quienes somos por un montón de razones.Quizás nunca conozcamos la mayoría de ellas.Pero aun...
STEPHEN CHBOSKY
Ambos dijeron que tomara asiento y parecían hablar en serio, así que me senté.
STEPHEN CHBOSKY
I know these will all be stories some day, and our pictures will become old photographs. We all beco...
STEPHEN CHBOSKY
So I guess we are who we are for a lot of reasons. And maybewe'll never know most of them.
STEPHEN CHBOSKY
So I guess we are who we are for a lot of reasons. And maybe we'll never know most of them.
STEPHEN CHBOSKY
There's nothing like the deep breathes after laughing that hard. Nothing in the world like a sore st...
STHEPHEN CHBOSKY
no more pencils, no more books, no more teachers' dirty looks, when the teacher rings the bell, drop...
STEPHEN CHBOSKY
I don't know the significance of this, but I find it very interesting.
STEPHEN CHBOSKY
Maybe it’s sad that these are now memories. And maybe it’s not sad.
STEPHEN CHBOSKY
I don't know if I have a favorite color.
KATE MIDDLETON
It's very special having a new little girl.
KATE MIDDLETON
I am often asked how it is that I am able to value people to such a deep degree. Apparently, I exhib...
C. JOYBELL C.
You deserve to be with somebody, who knows you're the one, from that very first moment he lays eyes ...
C. JOYBELL C.
I was very grateful to have heard it again. Because I guess we all forget sometimes. And I think eve...
STEPHEN CHBOSKY
I guess we are who we are for a lot of reasons. And maybe we'll never know most of them. But even if...
STEPHEN CHBOSKY
My father has been by my side since I was little. He takes care of things, my finances and my family...
NEYMAR
You're full of contradictions, Ms. Wallace."
I looked up at him and arched a brow. "I'm a girl...
TAMMARA WEBBER
I like to open for a band as it brings on sort of a challenge and it makes things more interesting. ...
KELLY JONES
Each man lives in his own universe and when he dies the world is over
BANGAMBIKI HABYARIMANA
Empathy is the new measurement of everything. It doesn't matter what religion you have, what God you...
C. JOYBELL C.
It's all to do with the training: you can do a lot if you're properly trained.
QUEEN ELIZABETH II
Like all best families, we have our share of eccentricities, of impetuous and wayward youngsters and...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II
My husband has quite simply been my strength and stay all these years, and I owe him a debt greater ...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II
It is easy enough to define what the Commonwealth is not. Indeed this is quite a popular pastime.
QUEEN ELIZABETH II
I have to be seen to be believed.
QUEEN ELIZABETH II
I have in sincerity pledged myself to your service, as so many of you are pledged to mine. Throughou...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II
I hope that tomorrow we can all, wherever we are, join in expressing our grief at Diana's loss, ...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II
I myself prefer my New Zealand eggs for breakfast.
QUEEN ELIZABETH II
The British constitution has always been puzzling and always will be.
QUEEN ELIZABETH II
I have behind me not only the splendid traditions and the annals of more than a thousand years but t...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II
To what greater inspiration and counsel can we turn than to the imperishable truth to be found in th...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II
What were once only hopes for the future have now come to pass; it is almost exactly 13 years since ...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II
First, I want to pay tribute to Diana myself. She was an exceptional and gifted human being. In good...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II
I cannot lead you into battle. I do not give you laws or administer justice but I can do something e...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II
To all those who have suffered as a consequence of our troubled past I extend my sincere thoughts an...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II
Grief is the price we pay for love.
QUEEN ELIZABETH II
The upward course of a nation's history is due in the long run to the soundness of heart of its ...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II
At its heart, engineering is about using science to find creative, practical solutions. It is a nobl...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II
At Christmas, I am always struck by how the spirit of togetherness lies also at the heart of the Chr...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II
For many, Christmas is also a time for coming together. But for others, service will come first.
QUEEN ELIZABETH II
The lessons from the peace process are clear; whatever life throws at us, our individual responses w...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II
I declare before you all that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your s...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II
Therefore I am sure that this, my Coronation, is not the symbol of a power and a splendor that are g...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II
We lost the American colonies because we lacked the statesmanship to know the right time and the man...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II
Madam President, speaking here in Dublin Castle it is impossible to ignore the weight of history, as...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II
These wretched babies don't come until they are ready.
QUEEN ELIZABETH II
I know of no single formula for success. But over the years I have observed that some attributes of ...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II
The events that I have attended to mark my Diamond Jubilee have been a humbling experience. It has t...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II
In remembering the appalling suffering of war on both sides, we recognise how precious is the peace ...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II
Like all the best families, we have our share of eccentricities, of impetuous and wayward youngsters...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II
No one who knew Diana will ever forget her. Millions of others who never met her, but felt they knew...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II
I have been aware all the time that my peoples, spread far and wide throughout every continent and o...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II
There is only one classroom in which to learn: 1. The work of God. 2. The will of God. 3. The trustw...
ELISABETH ELLIOT
I was suddenly very aware of the fact it was me standing up in that tunnel with the wind over my fac...
STEPHEN CHBOSKY
The only perspective is to really be there.
STEPHEN CHBOSKY
I didn't feel like reading that night, so I went downstairs and watched a half-hour long commercial ...
STEPHEN CHBOSKY
Why is England manufacturing bigger and better airplanes and bombs and at the same time churning out...
ANNE FRANK
We die a day at a time
BANGAMBIKI HABYARIMANA
Never give up on you. In order to make a difference you would have to somehow be different.
JOHNNIE DENT JR.
Good, that's a job well done," Grishmak said cheerfully. "Am I the only one who's hungry?
STUART HILL
The end of the world is a strange concept. The world is always ending, and the end is always being a...
NEIL GAIMAN
We'll sort of get over the marriage first and then maybe look at the kids. But obviously we want...
PRINCE WILLIAM
Family is the most important thing in the world.
PRINCESS DIANA
You philosophers are lucky men. You write on paper and paper is patient. Unfortunate Empress that I ...
CATHERINE THE GREAT
With the right help, children have a good chance of overcoming their issues while they are still you...
KATE MIDDLETON
As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend.
KING SOLOMON
I don't mind a big fascinator. I think there is more scope for artwork in a fascinator rather th...
ZARA PHILLIPS
I was always told from the hat-makers that you should have your hair up because it shows the hat mor...
ZARA PHILLIPS
I don't think I'll still be riding at 40. There are a couple of people who are still riding ...
ZARA PHILLIPS
My dad's not a big talker.
ZARA PHILLIPS
My dad can be pretty critical sometimes.
ZARA PHILLIPS
I'd love to have kids, but not at the moment.
ZARA PHILLIPS
You cannot make horses 'safe.'
ZARA PHILLIPS
Virtually everything that gets printed about me is wrong anyway, so it doesn't really matter wha...
ZARA PHILLIPS
It's stupid to say that I don't like being in the public eye, but I don't like doing stu...
ZARA PHILLIPS
I'm an affectionate person.
ZARA PHILLIPS
People still text me to say that there is something about me in the paper, and what really annoys me...
ZARA PHILLIPS
Sometimes people will come up in the street and say: 'My daughter loves you, will you sign an au...
ZARA PHILLIPS
Taking part in an Olympics on home ground is something you dream about.
ZARA PHILLIPS
My brother and I have been able to get on and have been very lucky to do things with our family that...
ZARA PHILLIPS
I don't think about the media.
ZARA PHILLIPS
I love the sport and being competitive.
ZARA PHILLIPS
The horses are all characters, all personalities. Some you get along with, some you don't, some ...
ZARA PHILLIPS
I hate having my picture taken.
ZARA PHILLIPS
Unfortunately in sport it's either good or bad. You've got to take the highs and the lows.
ZARA PHILLIPS
My mother is massively into sailing, so we always had Musto clothes, and it went on from there, real...
ZARA PHILLIPS
The senior members of the royal family work very hard and I don't think people quite realise tha...
ZARA PHILLIPS
In our sport you're very lucky to find a horse of a lifetime and I found mine relatively early. ...
ZARA PHILLIPS
I don't have a stylist, and I do most of my shopping online, just because it's easier. I don...
ZARA PHILLIPS
I think Facebook's dangerous. So many people I know get into trouble with Facebook... I'd ra...
ZARA PHILLIPS
I'm not a princess anyway so I find that quite weird to be labelled as one.
ZARA PHILLIPS

More Seamus Heaney

Anyone born and bred in Northern Ireland can't be too optimistic.
SEAMUS HEANEY
words...To lure the tribal shoals to epigram / And order.
SEAMUS HEANEY
Every time you read a poem aloud to yourself in the presence of others, you are reading it into your...
SEAMUS HEANEY
The gift of writing is to be self-forgetful, to get a surge of inner life or inner supply or unexpec...
SEAMUS HEANEY
Loyalism, or Unionism, or Protestantism, or whatever you want to call it, in Northern Ireland - it o...
SEAMUS HEANEY
One of the best descriptions of the type of writer I am was given by Tom Paulin, who described himse...
SEAMUS HEANEY
Nowadays, what an award gives is a sense of solidarity with the poetry guild, as it were: sustenance...
SEAMUS HEANEY
The fact of the matter is that the most unexpected and miraculous thing in my life was the arrival i...
SEAMUS HEANEY
The problem as you get older... is that you become more self-aware. At the same time, you have to su...
SEAMUS HEANEY
The Heaneys were aristocrats, in the sense that they took for granted a code of behavior that was gi...
SEAMUS HEANEY
I've said it before about the Nobel Prize: it's like being struck by a more or less benign a...
SEAMUS HEANEY
In a way, Anglo-Saxon poetry cannot be translated.
SEAMUS HEANEY
I don't think my intelligence is naturally analytic or political.
SEAMUS HEANEY
Even if the hopes you started out with are dashed, hope has to be maintained.
SEAMUS HEANEY
Whether it be a matter of personal relations within a marriage or political initiatives within a pea...
SEAMUS HEANEY
A public expectation, it has to be said, not of poetry as such but of political positions variously ...
SEAMUS HEANEY
Then as the years went on and my listening became more deliberate, I would climb up on an arm of our...
SEAMUS HEANEY
Dylan Thomas is now as much a case history as a chapter in the history of poetry.
SEAMUS HEANEY
If you have the words, there's always a chance that you'll find the way.
SEAMUS HEANEY
In the United States, in poetry workshops, it's now quite a thing to make graduate students lear...
SEAMUS HEANEY
The faking of feelings is a sin against the imagination.
SEAMUS HEANEY
If poetry and the arts do anything, they can fortify your inner life, your inwardness.
SEAMUS HEANEY
If you go into an underground train in London - probably anywhere, but chiefly in London - there'...
SEAMUS HEANEY
I have always thought of poems as stepping stones in one's own sense of oneself. Every now and a...
SEAMUS HEANEY
Eternal life can mean utter reverence for life itself.
SEAMUS HEANEY
The amount of sensory material stored up or stored down in the brain's and the body's system...
SEAMUS HEANEY
But that citizen's perception was also at one with the truth in recognizing that the very brutal...
SEAMUS HEANEY
I'm not personally obsessed with death. At a certain age, the light that you live in is inhabite...
SEAMUS HEANEY
Without needing to be theoretically instructed, consciousness quickly realizes that it is the site o...
SEAMUS HEANEY
No place in the world prides itself more on its vigilance and realism, no place considers itself mor...
SEAMUS HEANEY
Manifesting that order of poetry where we can at last grow up to that which we stored up as we grew.
SEAMUS HEANEY
In fact, in lyric poetry, truthfulness becomes recognizable as a ring of truth within the medium its...
SEAMUS HEANEY
The external reality and inner dynamic of happenings in Northern Ireland between 1968 and 1974 were ...
SEAMUS HEANEY
I may have grown more attentive to the news and more alive to the world history and world-sorrow beh...
SEAMUS HEANEY
The next move is always the test.
SEAMUS HEANEY
It is difficult at times to repress the thought that history is about as instructive as an abattoir;...
SEAMUS HEANEY
Getting started, keeping going, getting started again - in art and in life, it seems to me this is t...
SEAMUS HEANEY
Yet there are times when a deeper need enters, when we want the poem to be not only pleasurably righ...
SEAMUS HEANEY
I think of Dermot Healy as the heir to Patrick Kavanagh.
SEAMUS HEANEY
I suppose you could say my father's world was Thomas Hardy and my mother's D.H. Lawrence.
SEAMUS HEANEY
In my early teens, I acquired a kind of representative status: went on behalf of the family to wakes...
SEAMUS HEANEY
Sink every impulse like a bolt. Secure
The bastion of sensation. Do not waver
Into langu...
SEAMUS HEANEY
As writers and readers, as sinners and citizens, our realism and our aesthetic sense make us wary of...
SEAMUS HEANEY
But the thing uttered by the speaker I strain towards is still not quite the story of what is going ...
SEAMUS HEANEY
Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.
SEAMUS HEANEY
The kinds of truth that art gives us many, many times are small truths. They don't have the reso...
SEAMUS HEANEY
I have begun to think of life as a series of ripples widening out from an original center.
SEAMUS HEANEY
In off the moors, down through the mist beams, god-cursed Grendel came greedily loping.
SEAMUS HEANEY
The kind of poet who founds and reconstitutes values is somebody like Yeats or Whitman - these are p...
SEAMUS HEANEY
Yeats was 18th-century oratory, almost.
SEAMUS HEANEY
I've always associated the moment of writing with a moment of lift, of joy, of unexpected reward...
SEAMUS HEANEY
In poetry, everything can be faked but the intensity of utterance.
SEAMUS HEANEY
All I know is a door into the dark
SEAMUS HEANEY
Behaviour that's admired
is the path to power among people everywhere.
SEAMUS HEANEY
The experiment of poetry, as far as I am concerned, happens when the poem carries you beyond where y...
SEAMUS HEANEY
To encounter 'Beowulf' is like taking a sledgehammer to a quarry face. You must bang in ther...
SEAMUS HEANEY
You yourself don't have to be shaken by mortal danger in order to feel your mortality.
SEAMUS HEANEY
Sonnet is about movement in a form.
SEAMUS HEANEY
I always had a superstitious fear of setting up a too well-designed writing place and then finding t...
SEAMUS HEANEY
When I first encountered the name of the city of Stockholm, I little thought that I would ever visit...
SEAMUS HEANEY
Poems that come swiftly are usually the ones that you keep.
SEAMUS HEANEY
Poetry is more a threshold than a path.
SEAMUS HEANEY
Since I was a schoolboy, I've been used to being recognized on the road by old and young, and be...
SEAMUS HEANEY
I would say that something important for me and for my generation in Northern Ireland was the 1947 E...
SEAMUS HEANEY
Anyone with gumption and a sharp mind will take the measure of two things: what's said and what's do...
SEAMUS HEANEY
Unless we constantly replenish our supply of calcium, drop by drop, our bones become thinner from de...
ROBERT HEANEY
[WHAT IT DOES: With 99 percent of the body's calcium stored in the skeleton and teeth, the main role...
ROBERT HEANEY
It's a marvelous campaign, but it didn't increase milk consumption.
ROBERT HEANEY
The artifacts are ... the treasures of Peru's most famous pre-Colombian city. On the other hand, Yal...
CHRIS HEANEY
Bones are meant to sustain work. If you don't work and exercise and put some stress on the bones, yo...
ROBERT HEANEY
My eyebrows - they have a life of their own. I don't arch them on purpose; I don't do, like,...
SEAMUS DEVER
My eyebrows - they have a life of their own. I don't arch them on purpose; I don't do, like,...
SEAMUS DEVER
My wife Juliana and I first saw Eurovision while on our honeymoon in Greece in 2006, and we were ama...
SEAMUS DEVER
He's got an out-clause to go overseas, but I'm probably 90 per cent sure that Motts would be staying...
SEAMUS MCPEAKE
Mobile entertainment is, without a doubt, the future of the phone. In December, 56 million mobile su...
SEAMUS MCATEER
You have to give the Rampage a lot of credit. Their game plan was to put the puck on net and keep it...
SEAMUS KOTYK
The closed carrier portals and the limited interfaces make it difficult for new brands to break in. ...
SEAMUS MCATEER
When you look at the enabling technologies for live voice, most consumers have speakers, many have a...
SEAMUS MCATEER
Better a bald head than no head at all
SEAMUS MACMANUS
Let me describe it as a momentous meeting. It was a good, workman-like meeting.
SEAMUS MALLON
It doesn't provide any compelling advantage for consumers. We don't see it playing a role on the con...
SEAMUS MCATEER
If you can't imagine female torch singers and Skrillex-style demon techno onstage at the same mo...
SEAMUS DEVER
I used to love stage above all, but that was when I was a single man. As I get older, the time commi...
SEAMUS DEVER
The undersea world surrounding Green Island looks just like a water fairyland.
MEHGAN HEANEY-GRIER