interviewer what was your response to receiving the nobel prize?

heaney it was a bit like being caught in a mostly benign avalanche. you are totally daunted, of course, when you think of previous writers who received the prize. and daunted when you think of the ones who didn’t receive it. just confining yourself to ireland you have yeats, shaw and beckett in the first group and james joyce in the second. so you soon realize you’d better not think too much about it at all. nothing can prepare you for it. zeus thunders and the world blinks twice and you get to your feet again and try to keep going.

theparisreview |  via cacioppo [emphasis mine]