Stevie Smith Quotes and Sayings - Page 1
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“Marriage I think For women Is the best of opiates. It kills the thoughts That think about the thoughts, It is the best of opiates. So said Maria. But too long in solitude she'd dwelt, And too long her thoughts had felt Their strength. So when the man drew near, Out popped her thoughts and covered him with fear. Poor Maria! Better that she had kept her thoughts on a chain, For now she's alone again and all in pain; She sighs for the man that went and the thoughts that stay To trouble her dreams by night and her dreams by day.”
-- Stevie Smith -
“I'm alive today, therefore I'm just as much a part of our time as everybody else. The times will just have to enlarge themselves to make room for me, won't they, and for everybody else.”
-- Stevie Smith -
“Unpopular, lonely and loving, Elinor need not trouble, For if she were not so loving, She would not be so miserable.”
-- Stevie Smith -
“Fourteen-year-old, why must you giggle and dote, Fourteen-year-old, why are you such a goat? I'm fourteen years old, that is the reason, I giggle and dote in season.”
-- Stevie Smith -
“I like food, I like stripping vegetables of their skins, I like to have a slim young parsnip under my knife.”
-- Stevie Smith -
“The flower and fruit of love are mine The ant, the fieldmouse and the mole”
-- Stevie Smith -
“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.”
-- Stevie Smith -
“I made Man with too many faults. Yet I love him. And if he wishes, I have a home above for him.”
-- Stevie Smith -
“The religion of Christianity Is mixed of sweetness and cruelty Reject this Sweetness, for she wears A smoky dress out of hell fires.”
-- Stevie Smith -
“Oh, no no no, it was too cold always (Still the dead one lay moaning) I was much too far out all my life And not waving but drowning.”
-- Stevie Smith -
“I'll have your heart, if not by gift my knife Shall carve it out. I'll have your heart, your life.”
-- Stevie Smith -
“All poetry has to do is to make a strong communication. All the poet has to do is listen. The poet is not an important fellow. There will also be another poet.”
-- Stevie Smith -
“This Englishwoman is so refined, She has no bosom and no behind.”
-- Stevie Smith -
“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 ...”
-- Stevie Smith -
“This is the simplest of all thoughts, that Death must come when we call, although he is a god.”
-- Stevie Smith -
“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.”
-- Stevie Smith -
“I am hungry to be interrupted For ever and ever amen O Person from Porlock come quickly And bring my thoughts to an end.”
-- Stevie Smith -
“As Nature is always careless and indifferent Who sees, who steps, means nothing and this is pretty.”
-- Stevie Smith -
“Cry pretty, pretty, pretty and you'll be able Very soon not even to cry pretty And so be delivered entirely from humanity This is prettiest of all, it is very pretty.”
-- Stevie Smith -
“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.”
-- Stevie Smith -
“Life may be treacherous, but you can always depend on death.”
-- Stevie Smith -
“I love people, but I love the thought and memory of them just as much.”
-- Stevie Smith -
“Youth is an arithmetical statement of passing interest, each hour eats it up.”
-- Stevie Smith -
“The human creature is alone in his carapace. Poetry is a strong way out.”
-- Stevie Smith -
“You must have some money if you are going to live simply. It need not be much, but you must have some.”
-- Stevie Smith -
“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 ...”
-- Stevie Smith -
“I don't think Auden liked my poetry very much, he's very Anglican.”
-- Stevie Smith -
“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.”
-- Stevie Smith -
“But one wants the idea of Death, you know, as something large and unknowable, something that allows a person to stretch himself out. Especially one wants it if one is tired. Or perhaps what one wants is simply a release from sensation, from all consciousness for ever....”
-- Stevie Smith -
“There are moments of despair that come sometimes, when night sets in and a white fog presses against the windows. Then our house changes its shape, rears up and becomes a place of despair. Then fear and rage run simply--and the thought of Death as a friend. This is the simplest of thoughts, that Death must come when we call, although he is a god.”
-- Stevie Smith
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