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. Norman MacCaig
All I write about is what's happened to me and to people I know, and the better I know them, the more likely they are to be written about. Norman MacCaig
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. Norman MacCaig
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. Norman MacCaig
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. Norman MacCaig
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! Norman MacCaig
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 propeller to a bird. Norman MacCaig
