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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

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Stevie Smith
Age: 68 †
Born: 1902
Born: September 20
Died: 1971
Died: March 7
Illustrator
Novelist
Performing Artist
Poet
Writer
Hull
England
Florence Margaret Smith
Told
Says
Word
Wish
Forlorn
Born
Sits
Ever
Muse
Wishes
Cold

More quotes by Stevie Smith

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The sea was angry that day my friend, like an old man trying to send back soup at a deli.
Stevie Smith
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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.
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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.
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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
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O happy dogs of England, Bark well at errand boys, If you lived anywhere else, You would not be allowed to make such an infernal noise.
Stevie Smith
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Why does my muse only speak when she is uhnhappy? She does not, I only listen when I am unhappy.
Stevie Smith
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I love people, but I love the thought and memory of them just as much.
Stevie Smith
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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
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Colours are what drive me most strongly.
Stevie Smith
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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
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I like to see cats in movement. A galloping cat is a fine sight. See it cross the road in a streak, cursed by the drivers of motor cars and buses, dodging the butcher's bicycle, coming safe to the kerb and bellying under its home gate.
Stevie Smith
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I am hungry to be interrupted For ever and ever amen O Person from Porlock come quickly And bring my thoughts to an end.
Stevie Smith
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I don't think Auden liked my poetry very much, he's very Anglican.
Stevie Smith
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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
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Christianity in the suburb is cheerful. The church is a centre of social activity and those who go to church need never be lonely.
Stevie Smith
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Death's not a separation or alteration or parting it's just a one-handled door.
Stevie Smith
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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
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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
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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
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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