"Hope is not optimism, which expects things to turn out well, but something rooted in the conviction that there is good worth working for."
"Yet there are times when a deeper need enters, when we want the poem to be not only pleasurably right but compellingly wise, not only a surprising variation played upon the world, but a re-tuning of the world itself."
3 likes
Source: Seamus Heaney (2014). “Opened Ground: Selected Poems, 1966-1996”, p.420, Macmillan
About the author
Same author
More quotes by Seamus Heaney
"Believe that a further shore is reachable from here."
"Even if the hopes you started out with are dashed, hope has to be maintained."
"Anyone with gumption and a sharp mind will take the measure of two things: what's said and what's done."
"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."
"If you have the words, there's always a chance that you'll find the way."