Laura Riding Jackson Quotes & Sayings

the words are only part of the poetic
formula: the rest is ritual, and the
reason in THEM must contend with the
mechanics of magic-making in IT -- and
must not win. — Laura Riding Jackson

As stone suffers of stoniness,
As light of its shiningness,
As birds of their wingedness,
So I of my whoness.

And what the cure of all this?
What the not and not suffering?
What the better and later of this?
What the more me of me?

How for the pain-world to be
More world and no pain?
How for the faithful rain to fall
More wet and more dry?

How for the wilful blood to run
More salt-red and sweet-white?
And how for me in my actualness
To more shriek and more smile?

By no other miracles,
By the same knowing poison,
By an improved anguish,
By my further dying. — Laura Riding Jackson

Forgive me, giver, if I destroy the gift:
it is so nearly what would please me
I cannot but perfect it — Laura Riding Jackson

Take hands.
There is no love now.
But there are hands.
There is no joining now,
But a joining has been
Of the fastening of fingers
And their opening.
More than the clasp even, the kiss
Speaks loneliness,
How we dwell apart,
And how love triumphs in this. — Laura Riding Jackson

People will think you brilliant
only if you tell them what they know.
To avoid being thought brilliant,
avoid knowing what they know.
Write to discover to yourself
what you know.

Anarchism is Not Enough — Laura Riding Jackson

Ah, the minutes twinkle in and out
And in and out come and go
One by one, none by none,
What we know, what we don't know. — Laura Riding Jackson

She saw that the world was evil and yet craved for happines in it, which she thought to get by being evil herself. And she had no more happiness than I have had -- who chose the other way. There was something that was the same in each of us: we were alike in that we hated the world, and yet saw that it could not have been otherwise. And we both tried to love in spite of this hate: perhaps she was more successful than I. Therefore do not talk lightly of a new start. Evil as the old things were, they were all that we had. And if you feel that they are gone now, be sorrowful -- for it will be a long time before new things come to replace them, and we cannot say how much better they will be. — Laura Riding Jackson