Seamus Heaney

"Time is not our enemy; indifference is."

"Every culture is a language of symbols and signs."

"The act of translation is the act of betrayal and faithfulness combined."

"We inherit not just words but the ghosts of those who spoke them."

"The natural world speaks in languages we are only beginning to understand."

"A poem should feel like a clarification of something half-known."

"We are made by the words we speak and hear."

"The sweetness of the world is in its particularity."

"To write is to risk yourself in language."

"The past is not behind us; it is within us."

"A poem succeeds when it makes you feel less alone."

"The truest thing about experience is that it cannot be fully expressed."

"We are all exiles in some sense."

"The form of a poem is part of its meaning."

"Language is where the inner and outer worlds meet."

"To honor the dead is to honor the living."

"The smallest details often contain the largest truths."

"A poem is a record of consciousness at a particular moment."

"We speak the language we inherit, but we also remake it."

"The value of a poem lies not in what it says but in how it makes us feel."

"Literature is a conversation across time."

"The earth is our first teacher."

"To be Irish is to be caught between languages and worlds."

"A poem is a small act of resistance against silence."

"We are all translating experience into language constantly."

"The past speaks to us through poetry."

"Beauty is found in attention and care."

"Words can heal or wound depending on how they are used."

"The poet's job is to make the familiar strange and the strange familiar."

"We live in language the way we live in air."