Norman MacCaig Quotes

Anybody who writes doesn't like to be misunderstood.
Norman MacCaig

Anybody, Writes

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

Nature, Love, Hills

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

Love, Men, Reason

A terrible thing about getting oldish is that your friends start dying, and in the last ten years I have lost seven or eight of my closest.
Norman MacCaig

Lost, Friends, Start

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

Write, Happened, Written

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.
Norman MacCaig

Poetry, Books, Fishing

And if they haven't got poetry in them, there's nothing you can do that will produce it.
Norman MacCaig

Poetry, Nothing, Produce

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.
Norman MacCaig

Great, Help, Sometimes

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

Impossible, Read, Henry

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

Good, Bad, Thinking

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

Poetry, Question, Second

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

Love, Nice, True

But you'd have a job to find many of my poems which would seem to be very influenced by a particular person.
Norman MacCaig

Job, Person, Find

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

Poetry, Help, Person

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

Care, Book, Sense

I don't think of myself all the time.
Norman MacCaig

I find it's impossible for me to read Proust.
Norman MacCaig

Find, Impossible, Read

I never think about poetry except when I'm writing it. I mean my poetry.
Norman MacCaig

Poetry, Writing, Mean

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

Keep, Books, Throw

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

Said, Invention, Powers

I used to fish the Border rivers, but nowadays you have to queue up for a shot and I can't stand that.
Norman MacCaig

Used, Fish, Stand

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

Love, Great, Big

I was very interested in American poetry for many years. Much less now.
Norman MacCaig

Poetry, American, Less

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

Age, Sex, Single

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.
Norman MacCaig

Poetry, True, Why

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Biography

Nationality: Scottish

Type: Poet

Born: November 14, 1910

Died: January 23, 1996

Links

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