Skip to content
quotesby

About this quote

What does it mean?
Heaney writes to understand himself and to make silence resonate with meaning.
In plain terms
He writes to find himself and make the quiet loud.
What can you take from it?
Writing helps you understand yourself and give voice to silence.

Where it applies

  • creative writing
  • personal reflection
  • therapy

Putting it to work

  • write to discover yourself
  • find voice in silence
  • use language intentionally

Questions to consider

  • Why do you write or create?
  • What silence in your life needs echoing?

Another view

It is abstract and does not explain the mechanics of how writing achieves this.

More from Seamus Heaney

  1. The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge Through living roots awaken in my head. But I've no spade to follo…

    Permalink to quote #2
  2. God is a foreman with certain definite views Who orders life in shifts of work and leisure.

    Permalink to quote #3
  3. Is there life before death? That's chalked up In Ballymurphy. Competence with pain, Coherent miseries, a bite and a sup, We hug our little destiny again.

    Permalink to quote #4

Related quotes

  1. Her every tone is music's own, Like those of morning birds, And something more than melody Dwells ever in her words.

    Edward Coote PinkneyEdward Coote Pinkney quote #3
  2. I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.

    Joan DidionJoan Didion quote #3
  3. Language is the net that holds thought trapped within a particular culture. But if one could only strike the ball with sufficient force, with perfect timing, i…

    David LodgeDavid Lodge quote #5