Home
Authors
Tags
App
Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App
All Quotes by author - Norman MacCaig
" All I write about is what's happened to me and to people I know, and the better I know them, the more likely they are to be written about. "
More
People
Write
" All those authors there, most of whom of course I've never met. That's the poetry side, that's the prose side, that's the fishing and miscellaneous behind me. You get an affection for books that you've enjoyed. "
Fishing
Poetry
You
" And if they haven't got poetry in them, there's nothing you can do that will produce it. "
Got
Nothing
Poetry
" And in a way, that's been a help to me, because I take great passions for a particular poet - sometimes it lasts for many years, sometimes only for a while. This happens to everybody. "
Years
Way
Sometimes
" And it's impossible for me to read Henry James. "
Henry
Impossible
James
" And some poets are far better read off the page because they're very bad speakers. I'm thinking of one in particular whom I won't name, a good poet, and he reads in such a dry, boring way, your eyes start drooping. "
Bad
Thinking
Eyes
" And the second question, can poetry be taught? I didn't think so. "
Question
Taught
Think
" Anybody who writes doesn't like to be misunderstood. "
Who
Anybody
Like
" A terrible thing about getting oldish is that your friends start dying, and in the last ten years I have lost seven or eight of my closest. "
Lost
Years
Dying
" But I hang on to books. I love them. I even think they're very nice decor in a room - far better than paintings... That's not quite true! "
Love
Think
Nice
" But you'd have a job to find many of my poems which would seem to be very influenced by a particular person. "
You
Seem
Find
" However, I learned something. I thought that if the young person, the student, has poetry in him or her, to offer them help is like offering a propeller to a bird. "
Help
Bird
Thought
" I don't care whether a book is a first edition or not. I'm not a bibliophile in that word's natural sense. "
Book
Natural
First
" I don't think of myself all the time. "
Myself
Time
Think
" I find it's impossible for me to read Proust. "
Impossible
Find
Me
" If I wrote a play with four characters every single one of them would talk like me regardless of age or sex. "
Single
Play
Sex
" I'm very gregarious, but I love being in the hills on my own. "
Nature
Own
My Own
" I never think about poetry except when I'm writing it. I mean my poetry. "
Writing
Mean
Never
" In fact a lot of them I think are absolute baloney. Those Charles Olsens and people like that. At first I was interested in seeing what they were up to, what they were doing, why they were doing it. They never moved me in the way that one is moved by true poetry. "
Think
Doing
Me
" I only keep books that I like very much. Otherwise I'd throw them out. "
Books
Much
Keep
" I said I have no powers of invention. Well, I also have no powers of mimicry. "
Powers
Invention
Also
" It's like breathing in and out to me. It's like having a conversation with someone who isn't there. Because it has to be addressed to somebody - not a particular person, or very rarely. "
Like
Conversation
Someone
" I used to fish the Border rivers, but nowadays you have to queue up for a shot and I can't stand that. "
Border
Rivers
Stand
" I used to have a great love for Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy, the big boys of the last century. "
Great
Great Love
Last
" I was very interested in American poetry for many years. Much less now. "
Poetry
American
Less
" People haven't got the interest in long long works these days. A lack of interest which I share. "
Long
Share
Days
" There are some friends you don't meet for twenty years and when you meet them again it's as if no twenty years has happened - you're lucky when that happens. I feel the same about books. "
Lucky
Feel
You
" Well, I love fishing. I wouldn't kill a fly myself but I've no hesitation in killing a fish. A lot of men are like that. No bother. Out you come. Thump. And that's not the only reason. "
Fish
Love
Fly
" Well, I'm a light traveller. I chuck things away. "
Well
Things
Light
" When I go fishing I like to know that there's nobody within five miles of me. "
Nobody
Like
Know
Check our other websites:
BookDark
MusicDark