Seamus Dourke Quotes

Was he, after all, really a bad man doing a brilliant impersonation of an idiot? It was hard to tell. The connections between stupidity and malice were so tangled and so dense. ~ Edward St. Aubyn

For now that it was gone, it all seemed Far stranger: more fantastical than Pharaoh. And he was changed: a foreigner among them. ~ Seamus Heaney

The faking of feelings is a sin against the imagination. ~ Seamus Heaney

Talking of 'letting go of a lot of stuff,'" his father handed the phrase back to Seamus, held by the corner like someone else's used handkerchief.... ~ Edward St. Aubyn

If you just did what you wanted to do, and didn't care what anyone thought, you'd be Autistic. ~ Seamus McDuff

Two buckets were easier carried than one. / I grew up in between. ~ Seamus Heaney

In the United States, in poetry workshops, it's now quite a thing to make graduate students learn poems by heart. ~ Seamus Heaney

Bubotubers," Professor Sprout told them briskly. "They need squeezing. You will collect the pus - "
"The what?" said Seamus Finnigan, sounding revolted.
"Pus, Finnigan, pus," said Professor Sprout. ~ J.K. Rowling

My passport's green. ~ Seamus Heaney

The way we are living, timorous or bold, will have been our life. ~ Seamus Heaney

What I've said before, only half in joke, is that everybody in Ireland is famous. Or, maybe better, say everybody is familiar. ~ Seamus Heaney

Seamus tossed down two of his cards. "Hell. I'd train her if Tristan asked me. Wouldn't mind seeing that pretty face every day."
I studied my cards, pretending not to hear him.
"Maybe I should offer to work with her," he said. "Free you up so you can get back to doing what you love."
My jaw tightened.
"You go kill things, and I'll show the lass some Irish moves. Win-win situation for both of us, right?"
The cards in my hand began to buckle.
"Ha!" Seamus gave Niall a victorious grin. "Pay up, bro."
Niall's mouth turned down. "You don't even like that album."
"I said it wasn't my favorite one, but you know I like all of Johnny Cash's stuff."
"Since when?"
I stared at the two brothers with a mix of irritation and confusion.
"What are you two going on about?" Chris asked.
Seamus looked at me with a smug expression. "I told Niall you had it bad for the lass. He said she was too young and sweet to interest you. We made a friendly wager, which he just lost."
"You don't have proof he's into her," Niall argued. "He just might not want your ugly mug around her."
Seamus snorted. "You do realize we're identical twins."
"I'm still better looking. ~ Karen Lynch

The murder of Sean Brown hurt my soul. ~ Seamus Heaney

I've got two neptunes here," said Harry after a while, frowning down at his piece of parchment, "that can't be right, can it?"
"Aaaaah," said Ron, imitating Professor Trelawney's mystical whisper, "when two neptunes appear in the sky, it is a sure sign that a midget in glasses is being born, Harry ... "
Seamus and Dean, who were working nearby, sniggered loudly, though not loud enough to mask the excited squeals from Lavender Brown- "Oh Professor, look! I think I might've gotten an unexpected planet! Oooh, which one's that, Professor?"
"It is Uranus, my dear," said Professor Trelawney, peering down at the chart.
"Can I get a look at Uranus too, Lavender?" said Ron. ~ J.K. Rowling

Be the necklace-fire of stars,
The cauterizing lightning.
Bewilder us with good. ~ Seamus Heaney

Digging

Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.

Under my window, a clean rasping sound
When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:
My father, digging. I look down

Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds
Bends low, comes up twenty years away
Stooping in rhythm through potato drills
Where he was digging.

The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft
Against the inside knee was levered firmly.
He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep
To scatter new potatoes that we picked,
Loving their cool hardness in our hands.

By God, the old man could handle a spade.
Just like his old man.

My grandfather cut more turf in a day
Than any other man on Toner's bog.
Once I carried him milk in a bottle
Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up
To drink it, then fell to right away
Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods
Over his shoulder, going down and down
For the good turf. Digging.

The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap
Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I've no spade to follow men like them.

Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I'll dig with it. ~ Seamus Heaney

On the contrary, a trust in the staying power and travel-worthiness of such good should encourage us to credit the possibility of a world where respect for the validity of every tradition
will issue in the creation and maintenance of a salubrious political space. ~ Seamus Heaney

Poetry is what we do to break bread with the dead. ~ Seamus Heaney

I cannot be weaned/Off the earth's long contour, her river-veins. ~ Seamus Heaney

I've said it before about the Nobel Prize: it's like being struck by a more or less benign avalanche. It was unexpected, unlooked for, and extraordinary. ~ Seamus Heaney

In my writing, I strive for a lyrical beauty somewhere between Tolkien at his best and Seamus Heaney's translation of Beowulf ~ Christopher Paolini

Believe that a further shore is reachable from here. ~ Seamus Heaney

The next move is always the test. ~ Seamus Heaney

I think that digital is offering many great possibilities for cinematographers. Particularly in urban cityscapes and low light photography its allowing us to render what we actually see with our eyes; which is interesting. ~ Seamus McGarvey

My father and mother had no sense of entitlement for their children. ~ Seamus Heaney

In Northern Ireland, helicopters are not usually used to promote poetry. ~ Seamus Heaney

documents, he placed them in a stiffened ~ Seamus O'Griffin

I think that water is immediately interesting. It's just, as an element, it is full of life. It is associated with origin; it is bright - it reflects you. ~ Seamus Heaney

I feel myself part of something. Not only being part of a community but part of an actual moment and a movement of Irish writing and art. That sense of being part of the whole thing is the deepest joy. ~ Seamus Heaney

Is there life before death? That's chalked up
In Ballymurphy. Competence with pain,
Coherent miseries, a bite and a sup,
We hug our little destiny again. ~ Seamus Heaney

It is always better
to avenge dear ones than to indulge in mourning.
For every one of us, living in this world
means waiting for our end. Let whoever can
win glory before death. When a warrior is gone,
that will be his best and only bulwark. ~ Seamus Heaney

This is the vowel of earth
dreaming its root
in flowers and snow,

mutation of weathers
and seasons,
a windfall composing
the floor it rots into.

I grew out of all this
like a weeping willow
inclined to
the appetites of gravity. ~ Seamus Heaney

I like your heart, Seamus." She cups my cheek, kisses me softly on the corner of my mouth, and whispers, "My heart really likes your heart. ~ Kim Holden

Bebeorh þé ðone bealo-níð, Béowulf léofa,
secg betsta, ond þé þaet sélre gecéos,
éce rǽdas; ofer-hýda ne gým,
mǽre cempa! Nú is þines maegnes blǽd
áne hwíle; eft sóna bið
þaet þec ádl oððe ecg eafoþes getwǽfeð,
oððe fýres feng oððe flódes wylm
oððe gripe méces oððe gáres fliht
oððe atol yldo, oððe éagena bearhtm
forsiteð ond forsworceð; semninga bið,
þaet ðec, dryht-guma, déað oferswýðeð.

O flower of warriors, beware of that trap.
Choose, dear Béowulf, the better part,
eternal rewards. Do not give way to pride.
For a brief while your strength is in bloom
but it fades quickly; and soon there will follow
illness or the sword to lay you low,
or a sudden fire or a surge of water
or jabbing blade or javelin from the air
or repellent age. Your piercing eye
will dim and darken; and death will arrive,
dear warrior, to sweep you away. ~ Seamus Heaney

I step through origins
like a dog turning
its memories of wilderness
on the kitchen mat:
the bog floor shakes,
water cheeps and lisps
as I walk down
rushes and heather.
I love this turf-face,
it's black incisions,
the cooped secrets
of process and ritual:
-Kinship ~ Seamus Heaney

We talked about desire and being jealous,
Our conversation a loose single gown
Or a white picnic tablecloth spread out
Like a book of manners in the wilderness. ~ Seamus Heaney

Nowadays, what an award gives is a sense of solidarity with the poetry guild, as it were: sustenance coming from the assent of your peers on the judging panel. ~ Seamus Heaney

What do we say any more to conjure the salt of our earth? So much comes and is gone that should be crystal and kept, and amicable weathers that bring up the grain of things, their tang of season and store, are all the packing we'll get. ~ Seamus Heaney

It is very true to say that work done by writers is quite often an attempt to give solid expression to that which is bothering them ... They feel they have got it right if they express the stress. ~ Seamus Heaney

Be advised my passport's green.
No glass of ours was ever raised
to toast the Queen. ~ Seamus Heaney

What is the difference, Potter, between monkshood and wolfsbane?"
At this, Hermione stood up, her hand stretching towards the dungeon ceiling.
I don't know," said Harry quietly. "I think Hermione does, though, why don't you try asking her?"
A few people laughed; Harry caught sight of Seamus's eye and Seamus winked. Snape, however, was not pleased.
Sit down," he snapped at Hermione. "For your information, Potter, asphodel and wormwood make a sleeping potion so powerful it is known as the Draught of Living Death. A bezoar is a stone taken from the stomach of a goat and it will save you from most poisons. As for monkshood and wolfsbane, they are the same plant, which also goes by the name of aconite. Well? Why aren't you all copying that down?"
There was a sudden rummaging for quills and parchment. Over the noise, Snape said, "And a point will be taken from Gryffindor house for your cheek, Potter. ~ J.K. Rowling

Every time you read a poem aloud to yourself in the presence of others, you are reading it into yourself and them. Voice helps to carry words farther and deeper than the eye. ~ Seamus Heaney

It's hard to remain patient when it seems so debilitating to do so. The balance comes with staying ambitious while being patient. ~ Seamus Dever

The kinds of truth that art gives us many, many times are small truths. They don't have the resonance of an encyclical from the Pope stating an eternal truth, but they partake of the quality of eternity. There is a sort of timeless delight in them. ~ Seamus Heaney

Since when," he asked,
"Are the first line and last line of any poem
Where the poem begins and ends? ~ Seamus Heaney

I rhyme
To see myself, to set the darkness echoing. ~ Seamus Heaney

In a way, Anglo-Saxon poetry cannot be translated. ~ Seamus Heaney