Seamus Heaney (1939-2013)

I have begun to think of life as a series of ripples widening out from an original center. In a way, no matter how wide the circumference gets, no matter how far you have rippled out from the first point, that original pulse of your being is still traveling in you and through you, so although you can talk about this period of your life and that period of it, your first self and your last self are by no means distinct.

"Seamus Heaney, The Art of Poetry No. 75", The Paris Review, 1997.