Stevie Smith Quotes & Sayings

The religion of Christianity Is mixed of sweetness and cruelty Reject this Sweetness, for she wears A smoky dress out of hell fires. — Stevie Smith

All tamed animals are nervous, we have given them reason to be, not only by cruelty but by our love too, that presses upon them. They have not been able to be entirely indifferent to this and untouched by it. — Stevie Smith

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

I'm alive today, therefore I'm just as much a part of our time as everybody else. The times will just have to enlarge themselves to make room for me, won't they, and for everybody else. — Stevie Smith

The world is come upon me, I used to keep it a long way off, But now I have been run over and I am in the hands of the hospital staff. — Stevie Smith

Nobody heard him, the dead man, But still he lay moaning. I was much further out than you thought, and not waving but drowning. I was much too far out all my life, And not waving but drowning. — Stevie Smith

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 experimenting
With 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 do
Then you will be practically unconscious without positively having to go. — Stevie Smith

The flower and fruit of love are mine The ant, the fieldmouse and the mole — Stevie Smith

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

I am hungry to be interrupted
For ever and ever amen — Stevie Smith

My Muse sits forlorn
She wishes she had not been born
She sits in the cold
No word she says is ever told. — Stevie Smith

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

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. — Stevie Smith

But human beings must suffer, and must make suffering for themselves, and beat themselves up into spiritual frenzies, and oh death and desolation, and oh night space and horror, and oh keep my dream from me. And how very splendid it is that we can do all this to ourselves and have such a splendid and really ingenious gift for inflicting suffering upon ourselves. For suffering and strain are the gauge of life, and who wishes to live like a vegetable?
But sometimes suffering measures life and ends it. And then it is not good at all. And between two people without knowing it a love may grow up, and a link may form, and no one knows or guesses. — Stevie Smith

And soon all our minds will be flat as a pancake,
With no room for genius exaltation or heartache.
And our children and theirs will preen, smirk and chatter,
With not even the sense to ask what is the matter. — Stevie Smith

There can be no good art that is international. Art to be vigorous and gesund must use the material at hand. — Stevie Smith

God the Eater
There is a god in whom I do not believe
Yet to this god my love stretches,
This god whom I do not believe in is
My 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 upon
As he is my whole life and I am his.
When I am dead I hope that he will eat
Everything I have been and have not been
And crunch and feed upon it and grow fat
Eating my life all up as it is his. — Stevie Smith

Dear little Bog-Face,
Why are you so cold?
And why do you lie with your eyes shut?
You are not very old.
I am a Child of this World
And a Child of Grace,
And Mother, I shall be glad when it is over,
I am Bog-Face. — Stevie Smith

Ceux qui luttent ce sont ceux qui vivent..
And down here they luttent a very great deal indeed..
But if life be the desideratum,. why grieve,. ils vivent.. — Stevie Smith

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

I am a forward-looking girl and don't stay where I am. "Left right, Be bright," as I said in my poem. That's on days when I am one big bounce, and have to go careful then not to be a nuisance. But later I get back to my own philosophical outlook that keeps us all kissable. — Stevie Smith

Life may be treacherous, but you can always depend on death. — Stevie Smith

All poetry has to do is to make a strong communication. All the poet has to do is listen. The poet is not an important fellow. There will also be another poet. — Stevie Smith

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

If there wasn't death, I think you couldn't go on. — Stevie Smith

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. — Stevie Smith

But one wants the idea of Death, you know, as something large and unknowable, something that allows a person to stretch himself out. Especially one wants it if one is tired. Or perhaps what one wants is simply a release from sensation, from all consciousness for ever ... — Stevie Smith

Children who paddle where the ocean bed shelves steeply
Must take great care they do not, Paddle too deeply.'
Thus spake the awful aging couple
Whose heart the years had turned to rubble.
But the little children, to save any brother,
Let it in at one ear and out at the other. — Stevie Smith

Youth is an arithmetical statement of passing interest, each hour eats it up. — Stevie Smith

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

Wild creatures' eyes, the colonel said,
Are innocent and fathomless
And when I look at them I see
That they are not aware of me
And oh I find and oh I bless
A comfort in this emptiness
They only see me when they want
To pounce upon me at the hunt;
But in the tame variety
There couches an anxiety
As if they yearned, yet knew not what
They yearned for, nor they yearned for not.
And so my dog would look at me
And it was pitiful to see
Such love and such dependency.
The human heart is not at ease
With animals that look like these. — Stevie Smith

Hope and desire,
All unfulfilled,
Have more than rope
And hangman killed. — Stevie Smith

This Englishwoman is so refined, She has no bosom and no behind. — Stevie Smith

The Reason"

My life is vile
I hate it so
I'll wait awhile
And then I'll go.

Why wait at all?
Hope springs alive,
Good may befall
I yet may thrive.

It is because I can't make up my mind
If God is good, impotent or unkind. — Stevie Smith

A man may forgive many wrongs, but he cannot easily forgive anyone who makes it plain that his conversation is tedious. — Stevie Smith

Why does my muse only speak when she is uhnhappy? She does not, I only listen when I am unhappy. — Stevie Smith

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

Some are born for peace and joy
Some are born for sorrow
But only for a day as we
Shall not be here tomorrow — Stevie Smith

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

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

Now when a people has dictators, that is a symptom that they are running mad. They should be watched. I think they should be watched very closely. And later they should be prevented. Now think it is not a nation but an individual, now see, this is like he had a disease. — Stevie Smith

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

Marriage I think
For women
Is the best of opiates.
It kills the thoughts
That think about the thoughts,
It is the best of opiates.
So said Maria.
But too long in solitude she'd dwelt,
And too long her thoughts had felt
Their strength. So when the man drew near,
Out popped her thoughts and covered him with fear.
Poor Maria!
Better that she had kept her thoughts on a chain,
For now she's alone again and all in pain;
She sighs for the man that went and the thoughts that stay
To trouble her dreams by night and her dreams by day. — Stevie Smith

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

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

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. — 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. — Stevie Smith

Who is this that comes in grandeur, coming from the blazing East? This is he we had not thought of, this is he the airy Christ. — Stevie Smith

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

There are moments of despair that come sometimes, when night sets in and a white fog presses against the windows. Then our house changes its shape, rears up and becomes a place of despair. Then fear and rage run simply
and the thought of Death as a friend. This is the simplest of thoughts, that Death must come when we call, although he is a god. — Stevie Smith

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

I'll have your heart, if not by gift my knife Shall carve it out. I'll have your heart, your life. — Stevie Smith

Fourteen-year-old, why must you giggle and dote,
Fourteen-year-old, why are you such a goat?
I'm fourteen years old, that is the reason,
I giggle and dote in season. — Stevie Smith

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

I love people, but I love the thought and memory of them just as much. — Stevie Smith

The human creature is alone in his carapace. Poetry is a strong way out. — Stevie Smith

Into the dark night
Resignedly I go,
I am not so afraid of the dark night
As the friends I do not know,
I do not fear the night above
As I fear the friends below. — Stevie Smith

People who are always praising the past And especially the time of faith as best Ought to go and live in the Middle Ages And be burnt at the stake as witches and sages. — Stevie Smith

Raise from your bed of languor
Raise from your bed of dismay
Your friends will not come tomorrow
As they did not come today
You must rely on yourself, they said,
You must rely on yourself,
Oh but I find this pill so bitter said the poor man
As he took it from the shelf
Crying, O sweet Death come to me
Come to me for company,
Sweet Death it is only you I can
Constrain for company. — Stevie Smith

One never knows really how things are with other people, they just do always seem more spirited than oneself somehow. — Stevie Smith

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

Love me, Love me, I cried to the rocks and the trees, And Love me, they cried again, but it was only to tease. Once I cried Love me to the people, but they fled like a dream, And when I cried Love to my friend, she began to scream. Oh why do they leave me, the beautiful people, and only the rocks remain, To cry Love me, as I cry Love me, and Love me again. — Stevie Smith

A great artist ... takes what he did not make and makes of it something that only he can make ... — Stevie Smith

Death's not a separation or alteration or parting; it's just a one-handled door. — Stevie Smith