Seamus Heaney

"Freedom is the birthright of every soul."

"Peace is the natural state of the enlightened."

"Nature is the teacher of all teachers."

"Art is the expression of the inexpressible."

"Science is truth seeking through observation."

"The main thing is to hold the line and do the work that's in front of you."

"You have to be true to your own sensibility, even if that sensibility is not currently fashionable."

"Poetry is what gets lost in translation."

"The patronage of the state is a poisoned chalice for the artist."

"I would begin with the simple assertion that what we are engaged in is not a work of genius but a work of craft."

"The job of poetry is to clear language of cant and pretence."

"I think the idea of mixing the political with the poetic is essential."

"You don't necessarily have to write about the big historical events to be political."

"Language is power, and carefully and knowingly deployed, it can transform."

"What we need are new words and new images for new perceptions."

"The English language was the language of conquest and colonization, but it's also a vehicle for resistance."

"I have always resisted the notion that poetry should be didactic or preachy."

"The real challenge is to articulate what you know without being self-conscious about it."

"A poem is an attempt to articulate a private vision in a public way."

"The past is not dead; it is living in the present and shaping the future."

"To be a writer is to take risks and to be prepared for failure."

"The best poems often come from moments of genuine uncertainty."

"Formal discipline is not a restraint on freedom but a vehicle for it."

"I write to discover what I think and feel about things."

"The task of the poet is to find the sacred in the ordinary."

"Memory is not something we retrieve but something we reconstruct and reshape."

"What matters is not whether you are traditional or experimental, but whether you are genuine."

"The relationship between the poet and his language is one of negotiation and compromise."

"I believe in the redemptive power of language and imagination."

"Poetry should offer moments of grace and revelation, however small."