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

The completely solitary self: thats where poetry comes from, and it gets isolated by crisis, and those crises are often very intimate also. – Seamus Heaney

In fact, in lyric poetry, truthfulness becomes recognizable as a ring of truth within the medium itself. – Seamus Heaney