Norman MacCaig Quotes

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Norman MacCaig

Profession : Poet

Birth : November 14, 1910

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

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

Norman MacCaig

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

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

Norman MacCaig