Seamus Heaney Quotes
It is difficult at times to repress the thought that history is about as instructive as an abattoir.
Heaney, Seamus. The Redress of Poetry. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1995, p. 17.
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835-1910. While this quotation is frequently attributed to Twain, no Twain scholar has ever been able to find it in his writings or reports of his speeches or conversations. We are suspicious that this quotation is authentic because Twain has been studied so much, it is improbable that if he had written it, the source would not have been identified. However many other experts believe it is genuine and is very frequently quoted. If you quote this, we recommend that you use a statement like, “Some people attribute Mark Twain as saying, …”
Cicely Isabel Fairfield
Seamus Justin Heaney MRIA was an Irish poet, playwright and translator. He received the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature. Among his best-known works is Death of a Naturalist (1966), his first major published volume. Heaney was and is still recognised as one of the principal contributors to poetry in Ireland during his lifetime. American poet Robert Lowell described him as "the most important Irish poet since Yeats", and many others, including the academic John Sutherland, have said that he was "the greatest poet of our age". Robert Pinsky has stated that "with his wonderful gift of eye and ear Heaney has the gift of the story-teller." Upon his death in 2013, The Independent described him as "probably the best-known poet in the world".
