Norman MacCaig Quotes

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

poetry

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.

poetry people

I said I have no powers of invention. Well, I also have no powers of mimicry.

invention power

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

age character

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.

poetry help

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

light

I used to have a great love for Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy, the big boys of the last century.

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.

men