Seamus Heaney

"To be honest you have to take risks with the language."

"I loved the sense of community that came with poetry readings."

"The real thing is the memory of it."

"Language is power, but it can also be a prison."

"Every writer creates their own precursors."

"The bog is like an archive of memory."

"You cannot live at all if you do not live fully now."

"Beauty is in the precision and care of language."

"The poet is the guardian of language."

"We are the music while the music lasts."

"History is now and Ireland."

"A poem may be an instant of grace, a brief unwrapping of timelessness."

"The impulse to make shapes in words is as natural as breathing."

"We are sustained by language, even as we struggle with it."

"One should not be too quick to dismiss what seems obscure."

"The present is the only time that counts."

"Loyalty and betrayal are the permanent themes of literature."

"We make our own meanings through the words we choose."

"The ground beneath our feet is sacred."

"Forgiveness is a luxury that not everyone can afford."

"Art and life are not separate things."

"The ear is the final arbiter of poetry."

"We are defined by our choices, not our circumstances."

"Language is a kind of archaeology of the self."

"The best poems come from the deepest silences."

"Memory is the only possession we can never lose."

"A single word can carry the weight of generations."

"The act of writing is an act of faith."

"We are all prisoners of language, but language is also our freedom."

"The poet must be willing to be transformed by their work."