List of Norman MacCaig Quotes

I Used To Fish The Border Rivers, But Nowadays You Have To Queue Up For A Shot And I Can't Stand That.

But You'd Have A Job To Find Many Of My Poems Which Would Seem To Be Very Influenced By A Particular Person.

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.

And It's Impossible For Me To Read Henry James.

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.

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.

When I Was Asked To Be Writer In Residence At Edinburgh I Thought, You Can't Teach Poetry. This Is Ridiculous.

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.

I Don't Care Whether A Book Is A First Edition Or Not. I'm Not A Bibliophile In That Word's Natural Sense.

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!

Well, I'm A Light Traveller. I Chuck Things Away.

I Never Think About Poetry Except When I'm Writing It. I Mean My Poetry.