Norman MacCaig
Norman MacCaig
Norman Alexander MacCaig OBEwas a Scottish poet and teacher. His poetry, in modern English, is known for its humour, simplicity of language and great popularity...
NationalityScottish
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth14 November 1910
books might
There are books up there I haven't read for many years but I wouldn't put them out. I never know when I might want to read them again.
true-love nice book
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!
book care firsts
I don't care whether a book is a first edition or not. I'm not a bibliophile in that word's natural sense.
teacher book paper
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 and books.
book fishing sides
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.
book years lucky
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.
book
I only keep books that I like very much. Otherwise I'd throw them out.
rivers borders fish-tanks
I used to fish the Border rivers, but nowadays you have to queue up for a shot and I can't stand that.
writing mean thinking
I never think about poetry except when I'm writing it. I mean my poetry.
nature love-is hills
I'm very gregarious, but I love being in the hills on my own.
eye thinking names
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.
sex character play
If I wrote a play with four characters every single one of them would talk like me regardless of age or sex.
mimicry invention said
I said I have no powers of invention. Well, I also have no powers of mimicry.
boys great-love lasts
I used to have a great love for Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy, the big boys of the last century.