Stevie Smith Quotes - Page 2

Unpopular, lonely and loving, Elinor need not trouble, For if she were not so loving, She would not be so miserable.

See the cat at love, rolling with its sweetheart, up and over, with shriek and moan. But if a person comes by, they break away, sit separate upon a fence washing their faces - and might never have met at all.

If I lie down on my bed I must be here, But if I lie down in my grave I may be elsewhere.

Youth is an arithmetical statement of passing interest, each hour eats it up.

It is an amiable part of human nature, that we should love our animals; it is even better to love them to the point of folly, than not to love them at all.

I love Death because he breaks the human pattern and frees us from pleasures too prolonged as well as from the pains of this world. It is pleasant, too, to remember that Death lies in our hands; he must come if we call him. ... I think if there were no death, life would be more than flesh and blood could bear.

As Nature is always careless and indifferent Who sees, who steps, means nothing and this is pretty.

So I fancy my Muse says, when I wish to die, Oh no, Oh no, we are not yet friends enough, And Virtue also says: We are not yet friends enough.

one never knows really how things are with other people, they just do always seem more spirited than oneself somehow.

Colours are what drive me most strongly.

It is the privilege of the rich To waste the time of the poor To water with tears in secret A tree that grows in secret That bears fruit in secret That ripened falls to the ground in secret And manures the parent tree Oh the wicked tree of hatred and the secret The sap rising and the tears falling.

Truth is far and flat, and fancy is fiery; and truth is cold, and people feel the cold, and they may wrap themselves against it in fancies that are fiery, but they should not call them facts; and, generally, poets do not; they are shrewd, they feel the cold, too, but they know a hawk from a handsaw, a fact from a fancy, as none knows better.

I only asked my friends to be friendly and polite, I found them indifferent and censorious; The one I left to silence, the other to reproach: God send me over all such friends victorious.

My friendships, they are a very strong part of my life, they are as light as gossamer but also they are as strong as steel. And I cannot throw them off, nor altogether do with them or without them. And I love them at the point where they say: It is nice to see you again. And I love them too at the point when they say: Good-bye, come again soon. The rhythm of friendship is a very good rhythm.

Coleridge received the Person from Porlock And ever after called him a curse, Then why did he hurry to let him in? He could have hid in the house.

This is the simplest of all thoughts, that Death must come when we call, although he is a god.

If a lady comes up to you and tells you that your dear mama is lying in a faint on the pavement round the corner, don't you believe her, don't have anything to do with her, do not go with her into the cab. It is the White Slave Traffic.

You must have some money if you are going to live simply. It need not be much, but you must have some.

I may be smelly and I may be old, Rough in my pebbles, reedy in my pools, But where my fish float by I bless their swimming, And I like the people to bathe in me especially women.

Nothing is more wistful than the scent of lilac, nor more robust than its woody stalk, for we must remember that it is a tree as well as a flower, we must try not to forget this.

I'm sorry to say my dear wife is a dreamer, and as she dreams she gets paler and leaner. Then be off to your Dream, with his fly-away hat, I stay with the girls who are happy and fat.

Into the dark night Resignedly I go, I am not so afraid of the dark night As the friends I do not know, I do not fear the night above As I fear the friends below.

I made Man with too many faults. Yet I love him. And if he wishes, I have a home above for him.

Who is this that comes in grandeur, coming from the blazing East? This is he we had not thought of, this is he the airy Christ.

The flower and fruit of love are mine The ant, the fieldmouse and the mole