"Walk on air against your better judgement."
— 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 (Beowulf: A New Verse Translation)

"Now it’s high watermark
and floodtide in the heart
and time to go.
The sea-nymphs in the spray
will be the chorus now.
What’s left to say?

Suspect too much sweet-talk
but never close your mind.
It was a fortunate wind
that blew me here. I leave
half-ready to believe
that a crippled trust might walk

and the half-true rhyme is love."
— Seamus Heaney (The Cure at Troy: A Version of Sophocles' Philoctetes)

"I can't think of a case where poems changed the world, but what they do is they change people's understanding of what's going on in the world."
— Seamus Heaney

"Sink every impulse like a bolt. Secure
The bastion of sensation. Do not waver
Into language. Do not waver in it."
— Seamus Heaney

"The end of art is peace."
— Seamus Heaney

"If self is a location, so is love:
Bearings taken, markings, cardinal points,
Options, obstinacies, dug heels, and distance,
Here and there and now and then, a stance."
— Seamus Heaney

"I suppose I'm saying that defiance is actually part of the lyric job"
— Seamus Heaney

"History says, Don't hope/On this side of the grave/But then, once in a lifetime/The longest-for tidal wave of justice can rise up/And hope and history rhyme./So hope for a great sea change/On the far side of revenge/Believe in miracles....
"
— Seamus Heaney

"The aim of poetry and the poet is finally to be of service, to ply the effort of the individual into the larger work of the community as a whole."
— Seamus Heaney

"If you have the words, there's always a chance that you'll find the way."
— Seamus Heaney