Quotes By Author: Stevie Smith

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

“Love is not love that wounded bleeds And bleeding sullies slow. Come death within my hands and I Unto my love will go.”

“My heart was full of softening showers,I used to swing like this for hours,I did not care for war or death,I was glad to draw my breath.”

“Prate not to me of suicide, Faint heart in battle, not for pride I say Endure, but that such end denied Makes welcomer yet the death that’s to be died.”

“Hope and desire,All unfulfilled,Have more than ropeAnd hangman killed.”

“It is the privilege of the richTo waste the time of the poorTo water with tears in secretA tree that grows in secretThat bears fruit in secretThat ripened falls to the ground in secretAnd manures the parent treeOh the wicked tree of hatred and the secretThe sap rising and the tears falling.”

“There is a god in whom I do not believeYet to this god my love stretches,This god whom I do not believe in isMy whole life, my life and I am his.Everything that I have of pleasure and pain(Of pain, of bitter pain and men’s contempt)I give this god for him to feed uponAs he is my whole life and I am his.When I am dead I hope that he will eatEverything I have been and have not beenAnd crunch and feed upon it and grow fatEating my life all up as it is his.- God the Eater”

“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 experimentingWith 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 doThen you will be practically unconscious without positively having to go.”

“Away with them, away; we should not believe fairy stories if we wish to be good. Think of them as persons from the fairy wood.”