Sorley MacLean

"Time, the deer, is in the wood of Hallaig"

"Although MacLean was very much cast as a representative of Gaelic Scotland when his writing was rediscovered and justly celebrated in the 1980s and afterwards, the resulting mix is comparatively unGae…"

"I personally have a great sense of honour and gratitude just for knowing him... It's easier for us to trust in the utter reality of poetry, trust in it as a necessity because you feel it's verified by…"

"Sorley MacLean's mastery of his chosen medium and his engagement with the European poetic tradition and European politics make him one of the major Scottish poets of the modern era."

"he Celtic Twilightists achieved the remarkable feat of attributing to Gaelic poetry the very opposite of every quality which it actually has."

"How many people know that the best living Scottish poet, by a whole head and shoulders, after the two major figures in this century, Edwin Muir and Hugh MacDiarmid, is not any of the English writing p…"

"The whole prospect of Gaelic appals me, the more I think of the difficulties and the likelihood of its extinction in a generation or two. A ... language with ... no modern prose of any account, no phi…"

"I believe Mull had much to do with my poetry: its physical beauty, so different from Skye’s, with the terrible imprint of the clearances on it, made it almost intolerable for a Gael."