Robert Graves Quotes - Page 3

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• Before an attack, the platoon pools all its available cash and the survivors divide it up afterwards. Those who are killed can't complain, the wounded would have given far more than that to escape as they have, and the unwounded regard the money as a consolation prize for still being here.

  Robert Graves

  War, Complaining, Survivor

  16 Copy quote

• Originally marriage meant the sale of a woman by one man to another; now most women sell themselves though they have no intention of delivering the goods listed in the bill of sale.

  Robert Graves

  Marriage, Men, Bills

  Robert Graves (1965). “Mammon and the black goddess”

  5 Copy quote

• Hardly one soldier in a hundred was inspired by religious feeling of even the crudest kind. It would have been difficult to remain religious in the trenches even if one had survived the irreligion of the training battalion at home.

  Robert Graves

  Religious, Home, Feelings

  Robert Graves (1957). “Good-bye to all that”, Turtleback Books

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• I revise the manuscript till I can't read it any longer, then I get somebody to type it. Then I revise the typing. Then it's retyped again. Then there's a third typing, which is the final one. Nothing should then remain that offends the eye.

  Robert Graves

  Eye, Finals, Should

  Robert Graves, Frank L. Kersnowski (1989). “Conversations with Robert Graves”, p.102, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• I do not love the Sabbath, The soapsuds and the starch, The troops of solemn people Who to Salvation march. I take my book, I take my stick On the Sabbath day, In woody nooks and valleys I hide myself away. To ponder there in quiet God's Universal Plan, Resolved that church and Sabbath Were never made for man.

  Robert Graves

  Book, Men, People

  Robert Graves, Beryl Graves, Dunstan Ward (1999). “Complete poems”, Carcanet Pr

  8 Copy quote

• He found a formula for drawing comic rabbits:
  This formula for drawing comic rabbits paid.
  Till in the end he could not change the tragic habits
  This formula for drawing comic rabbits made.

  Robert Graves

  Philosophy, Drawing, Rabbits

  Robert Graves, Lucia Graves (1995). “Complete short stories”, Carcanet Press Ltd.

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• Never use the word 'audience.' The very idea of a public, unless the poet is writing for money, seems wrong to me. Poets don't have an 'audience'. They're talking to a single person all the time.

  Robert Graves

  Writing, Ideas, Talking

  4 Copy quote

• Where nature with accustomed round Sweeps and garnishes the ground With kindly beauty, warm or cold Alternate seasons never old: Heathen, how furiously you rage, Cursing this blood and brimstone age, How furiously against your will You kill and kill again, and kill: All thought of peace behind you cast, Till like small boys with fear aghast, Each cries for God to understand, 'I could not help it, it was my hand.

  Robert Graves

  Boys, Blood, Hands

  Robert Graves (1920). “Country Sentiment”

  4 Copy quote

• There's a cool web of language winds us in, Retreat from too much joy or too much fear: We grow sea-green at last and coldly die In brininess and volubility.

  Robert Graves

  Wind, Sea, Joy

  'The Cool Web' (1927)

  4 Copy quote

• She tells her love while half asleep, In the dark hours, With half-words whispered low: As Earth stirs in her winter sleep And puts out grass and flowers Despite the snow, Despite the falling snow.

  Robert Graves

  Flower, Fall, Sleep

  Robert Graves (1986). “Selected poems”

  4 Copy quote

• Every fairy child may keep Two strong ponies and ten sheep; All have houses, each his own, Built of brick or granite stone; They live on cherries, they run wild I'd love to be a Fairy's child.

  Robert Graves

  Running, Strong, Children

  Robert Graves, Beryl Graves, Dunstan Ward (1999). “Complete poems”, Carcanet Pr

  9 Copy quote

• Through the window I can see Rooks above the cherry-tree, Sparrows in the violet bed, Bramble-bush and bumble-bee, And old red bracken smoulders still Among boulders on the hill, Far too bright to seem quite dead. But old Death, who can't forget, Waits his time and watches yet, Waits and watches by the door.

  Robert Graves

  Doors, Tree, Waiting

  Robert Graves, Beryl Graves, Dunstan Ward (1999). “Complete poems”, Carcanet Pr

  4 Copy quote

• The poet's first rule must be never to bore his readers; and his best way of keeping this rule is never to bore himself-which, of course, means to write only when he has something urgent to say.

  Robert Graves

  Writing, Mean, Way

  Robert Graves, Paul O'Prey (1995). “Collected writings on poetry”, Carcanet Pr

  4 Copy quote

• Haunted Gulp down your wine, old friends of mine, Roar through the darkness, stamp and sing And lay ghost hands on everything, But leave the noonday's warm sunshine To living lads for mirth and wine. I met you suddenly down the street, Strangers assume your phantom faces, You grin at me from daylight places, Dead, long dead, I'm ashamed to greet Dead men down the morning street.

  Robert Graves

  Morning, Wine, Sunshine

  Robert Graves (1920). “Country Sentiment”

  5 Copy quote

• Entrance and exit wounds are silvered clean, The track aches only when the rain reminds. The one-legged man forgets his leg of wood, The one-armed man his jointed wooden arm. The blinded man sees with his ears and hands As much or more than once with both his eyes.

  Robert Graves

  Rain, Eye, Men

  Robert Graves (1959). “Collected Poems, 1959”, London : Cassell

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• We forget cruelty and past betrayal, Heedless of where the next bright bolt may fall.

  Robert Graves

  Betrayal, Fall, Past

  Robert Graves (2013). “Selected Poems”, p.130, Faber & Faber

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• Since the age of 15 poetry has been my ruling passion and I have never intentionally undertaken any task or formed any relationship that seemed inconsistent with poetic principles; which has sometimes won me the reputation of an eccentric.

  Robert Graves

  Passion, Age, Principles

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• The difference between you and her (whom I to you did once prefer) Is clear enough to settle: She like a diamond shone, but you Shine like an early drop of dew Poised on a red rose petal. The dew-drop carries in its eye Mountain and forest, sea and sky, With every change of weather; Contrariwise, a diamond splits The prospect into idle bits That none can piece together.

  Robert Graves

  Eye, Sea, Sky

  Robert Graves (1972). “Poems”, Penguin Books Ltd

  5 Copy quote

• Patriotism, in the trenches, was too remote a sentiment, and at once rejected as fit only for civilians, or prisoners. A new arrival who talked patriotism would soon be told to cut it out.

  Robert Graves

  Cutting, Fit, Trenches

  Robert Graves (1980). “Good-Bye to All That: With a Prologue and an Epilogue”, Octagon Press, Limited

  7 Copy quote

• Prose books are the show dogs I breed and sell to support my cat.

  Robert Graves

  Dog, Book, Cat

  Robert Graves, Frank L. Kersnowski (1989). “Conversations with Robert Graves”, p.71, Univ. Press of Mississippi

  7 Copy quote

• The butterfly, a cabbage-white, (His honest idiocy of flight) Will never now, it is too late, Master the art of flying straight.

  Robert Graves

  Art, Butterfly, White

  Robert Graves, Frank L. Kersnowski (1989). “Conversations with Robert Graves”, p.54, Univ. Press of Mississippi

  10 Copy quote

• No honest theologian therefore can deny that his acceptance of Jesus as Christ logically binds every Christian to a belief in reincarnation - in Elias case (who was later John the Baptist) at least.

  Robert Graves

  Christian, Jesus, Acceptance

  6 Copy quote

• Though philosophers like to define poetry as irrational fancy, for us it is practical, humorous, reasonable way of being ourselves.

  Robert Graves

  Humorous, Poetry, Fancy

  Robert Graves, Patrick J. Quinn (2000). “Some speculations on literature, history, and religion”, Carcanet Press Ltd.

  4 Copy quote

• The function of poetry is religious invocation of the muse; its use is the experience of mixed exaltation and horror that her presence excites.

  Robert Graves

  Religious, Experience, Exaltation

  Robert Graves (2011). “The White Goddess”, p.53, Faber & Faber

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• But that so many scholars are barbarians does not much matter so long as a few of them are ready to help with their specialized knowledge the few independent thinkers, that is to say the poets, who try to to keep civilization alive.

  Robert Graves

  Independent, Civilization, Long

  Robert Graves (2011). “The White Goddess”, p.361, Faber & Faber

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