Top 33 Quotes by 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.

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 somebody - not a particular person, or very rarely.

I find it's impossible for me to read Proust.

When I was asked to be Writer in Residence at Edinburgh I thought, you can't teach poetry. This is ridiculous.

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

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

When I talk of hearing a poet's voice speaking, I always think of it as in the presence of the man.

When I go fishing I like to know that there's nobody within five miles of me.

And if they haven't got poetry in them, there's nothing you can do that will produce it.

Anybody who writes doesn't like to be misunderstood.