Stevie Smith Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

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

  Stevie Smith

  Lonely, Needs, Miserable

  Stevie Smith (1988). “New Selected Poems of Stevie Smith”, p.45, New Directions Publishing

  14 Copy quote

• 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.

  Stevie Smith

  Cat, Rolling, Might

  4 Copy quote

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

  Stevie Smith

  Lying, Bed, May

  Stevie Smith (1988). “New Selected Poems of Stevie Smith”, p.32, New Directions Publishing

  4 Copy quote

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

  Stevie Smith

  Youth, Hours, Passing

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Stevie Smith

  Animal, Human Nature, Should

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Pain, Lying, Thinking

  4 Copy quote

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

  Stevie Smith

  Beauty, Nature, Mean

  Stevie Smith (1988). “New Selected Poems of Stevie Smith”, p.115, New Directions Publishing

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Stevie Smith

  Wish To Die, Fancy, Muse

  Stevie Smith (1969). “The best beast: poems”

  4 Copy quote

• Colours are what drive me most strongly.

  Stevie Smith

  Colour

  4 Copy quote

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

  Stevie Smith

  People, Spirited, Oneself

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Stevie Smith

  Fall, Water, Hatred

  Stevie Smith (1988). “New Selected Poems of Stevie Smith”, p.76, New Directions Publishing

  5 Copy quote

• 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

  People, May, Fancy

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Stevie Smith

  Friendship, Silence, Friendly

  Stevie Smith (2015). “Collected Poems and Drawings of Stevie Smith”, p.734, Faber & Faber

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Stevie Smith

  Strong, Nice, Light

  Stevie Smith (1969). “Novel on yellow paper: or, Work it out for yourself”, Jonathan Cape

  4 Copy quote

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

  Stevie Smith

  Simplest

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Poetry, House, Ever After

  Stevie Smith (1988). “New Selected Poems of Stevie Smith”, p.87, New Directions Publishing

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Stevie Smith

  Lying, Believe, White

  5 Copy quote

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

  Stevie Smith

  Needs, Live Simply, Ifs

  6 Copy quote

• 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.

  Stevie Smith

  Swimming, People, Fish Tanks

  Stevie Smith (2015). “Collected Poems and Drawings of Stevie Smith”, p.311, Faber & Faber

  8 Copy quote

• 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

  Flower, Tree, Trying

  96 Copy quote

• 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

  Marriage, Girl, Dream

  Stevie Smith, James MacGibbon (1983). “Collected Poems”, p.190, New Directions Publishing

  4 Copy quote

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

  Stevie Smith

  Home, I Love Him, Men

  Stevie Smith (1988). “New Selected Poems of Stevie Smith”, p.93, New Directions Publishing

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Stevie Smith

  Soul, Peculiar, Tolls

  Stevie Smith (2015). “Collected Poems and Drawings of Stevie Smith”, p.297, Faber & Faber

  4 Copy quote

• I don't think Auden liked my poetry very much, he's very Anglican.

  Stevie Smith

  Thinking, Auden

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Beauty, Humanity, Able

  Stevie Smith, James MacGibbon (1983). “Collected Poems”, p.470, New Directions Publishing

  4 Copy quote

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