Anything Can Happen is also, incidentally, a poem that arose from teaching. I'd talked about the Horace Ode (I, 34) [on which… — Seamus Heaney Copy Share Image
Even though Helen Vendler wasn't on the Harvard faculty when I came first in 1979, she was a guardian spirit; Robert Fitzgerald… — Seamus Heaney Copy Share Image
Harvard created wonderful conditions for me as a writerbut the writing was done, almost entirely, when I got home. — Seamus Heaney Copy Share Image
The appointment [in Harvard] gave me economic safety, writerly support, and intellectual self-respectplus eight months to myself every year. — Seamus Heaney Copy Share Image
The poems I did write there [in Harvard] include Alphabets the 1984 Phi Beta Kappa poem and A Sofa in the Forties.… — Seamus Heaney Copy Share Image
Harvard meant a lot in my writing life from the beginning, even though I didnt actually do much composition on the spot. — Seamus Heaney Copy Share Image
You had to come back to learn how to lose yourself, to be pilot and stray-witch, Hansel and Gretel in one. — Seamus Heaney Copy Share Image
If self is a location, so is love: Bearings taken, markings, cardinal points, Options, obstinacies, dug heels, and distance, Here and there and now… — Seamus Heaney Copy Share Image
I'm very conscious that people dear to me are alive in my imagination - poets in particular. — Seamus Heaney Copy Share Image
Once I was on the job, once I had got started, I felt safe enough, but the anticipation made me tense. — Seamus Heaney Copy Share Image
You can have Irish identity in the north and also have your Irish passport. — Seamus Heaney Copy Share Image
The external reality and inner dynamic of happenings in Northern Ireland between 1968 and 1974 were symptomatic of change, violent change admittedly, but change… — Seamus Heaney Copy Share Image
Hope for a great sea-change timid to rebuke and too petty to forgive — Seamus Heaney Copy Share Image
One of the very first poems I wrote was Docker That fist would drop a hammer on a Catholic and one of the sturdiest… — Seamus Heaney Copy Share Image
Anything Can Happen is also, incidentally, a poem that arose from teaching. I'd talked about the Horace Ode (I, 34) [on which the poem… — Seamus Heaney Copy Share Image
Poetry is always slightly mysterious, and you wonder what is your relationship to it. — Seamus Heaney Copy Share Image
Sink every impulse like a bolt. Secure The bastion of sensation. Do not waver Into language. Do not waver in it. — Seamus Heaney Copy Share Image
![“Anything Can Happen is also, incidentally, a poem that arose from teaching. I'd talked about the Horace Ode (I, 34) [on which the poem is based] in a lecture I gave at Harvard in the fall of 2000 entitled Bright Boltsand remembered it after the Twin Towers attack.” quote by Seamus Heaney](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/2e6/seamus-heaney-1711_anything-can-happen_anything-can-happen-is-also-incidentally_181651.jpg)
![“The appointment [in Harvard] gave me economic safety, writerly support, and intellectual self-respectplus eight months to myself every year.” quote by Seamus Heaney](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/5d7/seamus-heaney-1711_appointments_the-appointment-in-harvard-gave-me-econo_2464825.jpg)
![“The poems I did write there [in Harvard] include Alphabets the 1984 Phi Beta Kappa poem and A Sofa in the Forties. And, of course, the John Harvard poem for the 350th anniversary Villanelle for an Anniversary.” quote by Seamus Heaney](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/70f/seamus-heaney-1711_alphabet_the-poems-i-did-write-there-in-harvard-i_2667103.jpg)
![“One of the very first poems I wrote was Docker That fist would drop a hammer on a Catholic and one of the sturdiest was Requiem for the Croppies, written 50 years after 1916 [the year of the Easter Rising]. Being responsible and what it means, what it demands, have indeed preoccupied me maybe too…” quote by Seamus Heaney](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/5fb/seamus-heaney-1711_being-responsible_one-of-the-very-first-poems-i-wrote-was_181491.jpg)
