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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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