Norman MacCaig Quotes
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When I talk of hearing a poet's voice speaking, I always think of it as in the presence of the man.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Anybody who writes doesn't like to be misunderstood.
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I don't care whether a book is a first edition or not. I'm not a bibliophile in that word's natural sense.
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I never think about poetry except when I'm writing it. I mean my poetry.