Stevie Smith Quotes
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The sea was angry that day my friend, like an old man trying to send back soup at a deli.
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The world is come upon me, I used to keep it a long way off, But now I have been run over and I am in the hands of the hospital staff.
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This Englishwoman is so refined, She has no bosom and no behind.
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Christianity in the suburb is cheerful. The church is a centre of social activity and those who go to church need never be lonely.
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People who are always praising the past And especially the time of faith as best Ought to go and live in the Middle Ages And be burnt at the stake as witches and sages.
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As Nature is always careless and indifferent Who sees, who steps, means nothing and this is pretty.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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I made Man with too many faults. Yet I love him. And if he wishes, I have a home above for him.
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These thoughts are depressing I know. They are depressing, I wish I was more cheerful, it is more pleasant, Also it is a duty, we should smile as well as submitting To the purpose of One Above who is experimenting With various mixtures of human character which goes best, All is interesting for him it is exciting, but not for us. There I go again. Smile, smile, and get some work to do Then you will be practically unconscious without positively having to go.
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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.
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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.
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Life may be treacherous, but you can always depend on death.
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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.
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The religion of Christianity Is mixed of sweetness and cruelty Reject this Sweetness, for she wears A smoky dress out of hell fires.
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I love people, but I love the thought and memory of them just as much.
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Colours are what drive me most strongly.
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Oh Lion in a peculiar guise, Sharp Roman road to Paradise, Come eat me up, I'll pay thy toll With all my flesh, and keep my soul.
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The human creature is alone in his carapace. Poetry is a strong way out.
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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.
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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.