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33 quotes by Norman MacCaig

The cover of MacCaig's Selected Poems Norman Alexander MacCaig OBE (14 November 1910 – 23 January 1996) was a Scottish poet and teacher. His poetry, in modern English, is known for its humour, simplicity of language and great popularity.
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When I was asked to be Writer in Residence at Edinburgh I thought, you can't teach poetry. This is ridiculous.

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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... →

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However, I learned something. I thought that if the young person, the student, has poetry in him or her, to offer them help is like offering a... →

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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... →

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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... →

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I don't care whether a book is a first edition or not. I'm not a bibliophile in that word's natural sense.

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A terrible thing about getting oldish is that your friends start dying, and in the last ten years I have lost seven or eight of my closest.

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And it's impossible for me to read Henry James.

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And the second question, can poetry be taught? I didn't think so.

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But you'd have a job to find many of my poems which would seem to be very influenced by a particular person.

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I never think about poetry except when I'm writing it. I mean my poetry.

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I only keep books that I like very much. Otherwise I'd throw them out.

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I said I have no powers of invention. Well, I also have no powers of mimicry.

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