Anyone with gumption and a sharp mind will take the measure of two things: what's said and what's done.
Seamus HeaneyRead
My experience is that prose usually equals duty - last minute, overdue-deadline stuff or a panic lecture to be written.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote reflects the burdens and obligations often associated with writing prose.
Seamus Heaney suggests that writing prose is frequently linked with feelings of duty and urgency, highlighting how much of it is driven by deadlines and a sense of obligation rather than inspiration or creativity. It conveys the struggle writers face when the act becomes a chore rather than a joyous expression.
Themes
ProseDutyWritingDeadlinesUrgency
In practice
Example use cases
In a workshop on creative writing, discussing the challenges writers face with deadlines, this quote illustrates a common sentiment.
More from Seamus Heaney
All quotes βWhat I've said before, only half in joke, is that everybody in Ireland is famous. Or, maybe better, say everybody is familiar.
Seamus HeaneyRead
The kinds of truth that art gives us many, many times are small truths. They don't have the resonance of an encyclical from the Pope stating an eternal truth, but they partake of the quality of eternity. There is a sort of timeless delight in them.
Seamus HeaneyRead
If self is a location, so is love: Bearings taken, markings, cardinal points, Options, obstinacies, dug heels, and distance, Here and there and now and then, a stance.
Seamus HeaneyRead
In my early teens, I acquired a kind of representative status: went on behalf of the family to wakes and funerals and so on. And I would be counted on as an adult contributor when it came to farm work - the hay in the summertime, for example.
Seamus HeaneyRead
I think that water is immediately interesting. It's just, as an element, it is full of life. It is associated with origin; it is bright - it reflects you.
Seamus HeaneyRead
Similar quotes
I wish more Italian literature were translated and read in English. I've discovered so many extraordinary and diverse writers: Lalla Romano, Carlo Cassola. Beppe Fenoglio, Giorgio Manganelli, just to name a few.
Jhumpa LahiriRead
The novels that attract me most are those that create an illusion of transparency around a knot of human relationships as obscure, cruel, and perverse as possible.
Italo CalvinoRead
A bookβ¦ itβs a world all on its own too. A world made of words, where you live for a while.
Patrick NessRead
A boy's story is the best that is ever told.
Charles DickensRead
If one believes that words are acts, as I do, then one must hold writers responsible for what their words do.
Ursula K. Le GuinRead
A book is sent out into the world, and there is no way of fully anticipating the responses it will elicit. Consider the responses called forth by the Bible, Homer, Shakespeare - let alone contemporary poetry or a modern novel.
Chaim PotokRead