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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

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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
Friends
Reproach
Left
Polite
Found
Indifferent
Friendly
Send
Friendship
Asked
Censorious
Silence
Victorious

More quotes by Stevie Smith

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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.
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Youth is an arithmetical statement of passing interest, each hour eats it up.
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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.
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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.
Stevie Smith
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The human creature is alone in his carapace. Poetry is a strong way out.
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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See the cat at love, rolling with its sweetheart, up and over, with shriek and moan. But if a person comes by, they break away, sit separate upon a fence washing their faces - and might never have met at all.
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Death's not a separation or alteration or parting it's just a one-handled door.
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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.
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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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This Englishwoman is so refined, She has no bosom and no behind.
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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This is the simplest of all thoughts, that Death must come when we call, although he is a god.
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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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 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
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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
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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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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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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