T. S. Eliot Quotes
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The bad poet is usually unconscious where he ought to be conscious, and conscious where he ought to be unconscious.
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We see the light but see not whence it comes. O Light Invisible, we glorify Thee!
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Quick now, here, now, always- A condition of complete simplicity (Costing not less than everything) And all shall be well and All manner of thing shall be well When the tongues of flame are in-folded Into the crowned knot of fire And the fire and the rose are one.
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He's the bafflement of Scotland Yard, the Flying Squad's despair: For when they reach the scene of crime - Macavity's not there!
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This is the way the world ends, not with a bang, but a whimper.
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A good poet will usually borrow from authors remote in time, or alien in language, or diverse in interest.
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April is the cruellest month.
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These modern productions are all very well, But there's nothing to equal, from what I hear tell, That moment of mystery When I made history As Firefrorefiddle, the Fiend of the Fell.
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This is the feeling for syllable and rhythm, penetrating far below the conscious levels of thought and feeling, invigorating every word.
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As things are, and as fundamentally they must always be, poetry is not a career, but a mug's game. No honest poet can ever feel quite sure of the permanent value of what he has written: He may have wasted his time and messed up his life for nothing.
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Because I do not hope to knowThe infirm glory of the positive hourBecause I do not thinkBecause I know I shall not knowThe one veritable transitory powerBecause I cannot drinkThere, where trees flower, and springs flow, for there is nothing again
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I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.
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I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
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Let us go then, you and I,When the evening is spread out against the skyLike a patient etherized upon a table.
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The last thing one discovers in composing a work is what to put first.
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And they write innumerable books; being too vain and distracted for silence: seeking every one after his own elevation, and dodging his emptiness.
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The nightingales are singing near The Convent of the Sacred Heart, And sang within the bloody wood When Agamemnon cried aloud, And let their liquid siftings fall To stain the stiff dishonored shroud.
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Playwriting gets into your blood and you can't stop it. At least not until the producers or the public tell you to.
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An editor should tell the author his writing is better than it is. Not a lot better, a little better.
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Yes the Rum Tum Tugger is a Curious Cat - And there isn't any call for me to shout it: For he will do As he do do And there's no doing anything about it!
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Hell is oneself, hell is alone, the other figures in it merely projections. There is nothing to escape from and nothing to escape to. One is always alone.
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Where the bricks are fallen We will build with new stone Where the beams are rotten We will build with new timbers Where the word is unspoken We will build with new speech There is work together A Church for all And a job for each Every man to his work.
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Anecdote: It is by no means self-evident that human beings are most real when most violently excited; violent physical passions do not in themselves differentiate men from each other, but rather tend to reduce them to the same state.
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To do the useful thing, to say the courageous thing, to contemplate the beautiful thing: that is enough for one man's life.