Edith Sitwell
One's own surroundings means so much to one, when one is feeling miserable.Collection: Mean
The poet is the complete lover of mankind.Collection: Lovers
Art is magic, not logic. This craze for the logical spirit in irrational shape is part of the present harmful mania for uniformity.Collection: Art
Said the Sun to the Moon-'When you are but a lonely white crone, And I, a dead King in my golden armour somewhere in a dark wood, Remember only this of our hopeless love That never till Time is done Will the fire of the heart and the fire of the mind be oneCollection: Lonely
If certain critics and poetasters had their way, 'Ordinary Piety' and its child, Dullness, would be the masters of poetry.Collection: Children
the arts are life accelerated and concentrated.Collection: Art
My poems are hymns of praise to the glory of life.Collection: Life
it is as unseeing to ask what is the use of poetry as it would be to ask what is the use of religion.Collection: Poetry
The trouble with most Englishwomen is that they will dress as if they had been a mouse in a previous incarnation... they do not want to attract attention.Collection: Dresses
Rhythm is one of the principal translators between dream and reality. Rhythm might be described as, to the world of sound, what light is to the world of sight. It shapes and gives new meaning. Rhythm was described by Schopenhauer as melody deprived of its pitch.Collection: Dream
What an artist is for is to tell us what we see but do not know that we see.Collection: Art
If one is a greyhound, why try to look like a Pekingese?Collection: Trying
The living blind and seeing Dead together lie As if in love . . . There was no more hating then, And no more love; Gone is the heart of Man.Collection: Hate
I wouldn't dream of following a fashion... how could one be a different person every three months?Collection: Dream
The reason why Matthew Arnold, to my feeling, fails entirely as a poet (though no doubt his ideas were good - at least, I am told they were) is that he had no sense of touch whatsoever. Nothing made any impression on his skin. He could feel neither the shape nor the texture of a poem with his hands.Collection: Ideas
What the reporters are like! They are mad with excitement at the thought of my approaching demise. Kind Sister Farquhar, my nurse, spends much of her time in throwing them downstairs. But one got in the other day, and asked me if I mind the fact that I must die.Collection: Nurse
By the time I was eleven years old, I had been taught that nature, far from abhorring a Vacuum, positively adores it.Collection: Nature
People are usually made Dames for virtues I do not possess.Collection: People
Our hearts seemed safe in our breasts and sang to the Light The marrow in the bone We dreamed was safe. . . the blood in the veins, the sap in the tree Were springs of Deity.Collection: Spring
Another little drink wouldn't do us any harm.Collection: Alcohol
The busy chatter of the heat Shrilled like a parakeet; And shuddering at the noonday light The dust lay dead and white As powder on a mummy's face, Or fawned with simian grace Round booths with many a hard bright toy And wooden brittle joy: The cap and bells of Time the Clown That, jangling, whistled down Young cherubs hidden in the guise Of every bird that flies; And star-bright masks for youth to wear, Lest any dream that fare Bright pilgrim past our ken, should see Hints of Reality.Collection: Dream
I may say that I think greed about poetry is the only permissible greed - it is, indeed, unavoidable.Collection: Thinking
The trouble about most Englishwomen is that they will dress as if they had been a mouse in a previous incarnation, or hope to be one in the next.Collection: Women