Norman MacCaig Quotes

Quotes about:

• When I go fishing I like to know that there's nobody within five miles of me.

  Norman MacCaig

  Fishing, Miles, Five

  45 Copy quote

• 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.

  Norman MacCaig

  Offering, Bird, Literature

  57 Copy quote

• And the second question, can poetry be taught? I didn't think so.

  Norman MacCaig

  Thinking, Literature, Taught

  9 Copy quote

• I'm very gregarious, but I love being in the hills on my own.

  Norman MacCaig

  Nature, Love Is, Hills

  89 Copy quote

• 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.

  Norman MacCaig

  Book, Years, Twenties

  8 Copy quote

• I learned words, I learned words; but half of them
  died from lack of exercise. And the ones I use
  often look at me
  with a look that whispers, Liar.

  Norman MacCaig

  Liars, Exercise, Looks

  Norman MacCaig (2013). “The Many Days: Selected Poems of Norman MacCaig”, p.13, Birlinn

  7 Copy quote

• 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.

  Norman MacCaig

  Breathing, Literature, Conversation

  8 Copy quote

• People haven't got the interest in long long works these days. A lack of interest which I share.

  Norman MacCaig

  Long, People, Literature

  4 Copy quote

• If I wrote a play with four characters every single one of them would talk like me regardless of age or sex.

  Norman MacCaig

  Sex, Character, Play

  5 Copy quote

• 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.

  Norman MacCaig

  Writing, People, Literature

  4 Copy quote

• Landscape is my religion. ...God in a green legend, I lean over the pool In a testament of leaves. I dangle my twinkling mood Before me in a cool cave roofed with branches And floored with a skin of water.

  Norman MacCaig

  Water, Skins, Caves

  4 Copy quote

• When I was asked to be Writer in Residence at Edinburgh I thought, you can't teach poetry. This is ridiculous.

  Norman MacCaig

  Edinburgh, Ridiculous, Euthanasia

  16 Copy quote

• 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.

  Norman MacCaig

  Men, Fishing, Literature

  8 Copy quote

• When I was a teacher, teachers would come into my classroom and admire my desk on which lay nothing whatever, whereas theirs were heaped with papers and books.

  Norman MacCaig

  Teacher, Book, Paper

  7 Copy quote

• Anybody who writes doesn't like to be misunderstood.

  Norman MacCaig

  Writing, Misunderstood, Literature

  4 Copy quote

• In some ways I'm a reticent man, and for quite a number of years there wasn't very much of my real true deep feelings in my writing.

  Norman MacCaig

  Real, Writing, Men

  5 Copy quote

• I only keep books that I like very much. Otherwise I'd throw them out.

  Norman MacCaig

  Book, Literature

  5 Copy quote

• I don't think of myself all the time.

  Norman MacCaig

  Thinking

  5 Copy quote

• When I talk of hearing a poet's voice speaking, I always think of it as in the presence of the man.

  Norman MacCaig

  Men, Thinking, Voice

  7 Copy quote

• And it's impossible for me to read Henry James.

  Norman MacCaig

  Literature, Impossible

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Norman MacCaig

  Eye, Thinking, Names

  4 Copy quote

• I just didn't want to shoot other people.

  Norman MacCaig

  People, Literature, Want

  4 Copy quote

• Well, I'm a light traveller. I chuck things away.

  Norman MacCaig

  Light, Literature, Chuck

  6 Copy quote

• 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!

  Norman MacCaig

  True Love, Nice, Book

  52 Copy quote

• I don't care whether a book is a first edition or not. I'm not a bibliophile in that word's natural sense.

  Norman MacCaig

  Book, Literature, Care

  6 Copy quote

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