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As writers and readers, as sinners and citizens, our realism and our aesthetic sense make us wary of crediting the positive note.

Seamus Heaney

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Seamus Heaney
Age: 74 †
Born: 1939
Born: April 13
Died: 2013
Died: August 30
Actor
Author
Linguist
Playwright
Poet
Translator
University Teacher
Writer
Seamus Justin Heaney
Seamus Heaney
Notes
Writers
Wary
Citizens
Sinners
Reader
Realism
Positive
Note
Sense
Sinner
Reality
Aesthetic
Make
Readers

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Harvard created wonderful conditions for me as a writerbut the writing was done, almost entirely, when I got home.
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At home in Ireland, there's a habit of avoidance, an ironical attitude towards the authority figure.
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But even so, none of the news of these world-spasms entered me as terror.
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Once off the bush The fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour. I always felt like crying. It wasn't fair That all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot. Each year I hoped they'd keep, knew they would not. -Blackberry picking
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In fact, in lyric poetry, truthfulness becomes recognizable as a ring of truth within the medium itself.
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Believe that a further shore is reachable from here.
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If self is a location, so is love: Bearings taken, markings, cardinal points, Options, obstinacies, dug heels, and distance, Here and there and now and then, a stance.
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Suspect too much sweet talk but never close your mind.
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Once I was on the job, once I had got started, I felt safe enough, but the anticipation made me tense.
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I can't think of a case where poems changed the world, but what they do is they change people's understanding of what's going on in the world.
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The end of art is peace.
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In off the moors, down through the mist beams, god-cursed Grendel came greedily loping.
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Even if the hopes you started out with are dashed, hope has to be maintained.
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Sink every impulse like a bolt. Secure The bastion of sensation. Do not waver Into language. Do not waver in it.
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