The fact of the matter is that the most unexpected and miraculous thing in my life was the arrival in it of poetry itself – as a vocation and an elevation almost. – Seamus Heaney
At home in Ireland, theres a habit of avoidance, an ironical attitude towards the authority figure. – 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
A public expectation, it has to be said, not of poetry as such but of political positions variously approvable by mutually disapproving groups. – Seamus Heaney
I remember being in Atlantic City once when I was 18 or 19, and a sea of people were screaming and pulling their hair because I was there. It was weird. Nobody deserves adulation like that. I tried to explain it to my kids once. I said, Mommy used to be kind of cool, kind of like a Britney Spears. – Genie Francis