Stevie Smith > Quotes

“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, Selected Poems of 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, Selected Poems of 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

“Unpopular, lonely and loving, Elinor need not trouble, For if she were not so loving, She would not be so miserable.”
― Stevie Smith, Selected Poems of Stevie Smith

“If there wasn't death, I think you couldn't go on.”
― 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'll have your heart, if not by gift my knife Shall carve it out. I'll have your heart, your life.”
― Stevie Smith, Selected Poems of 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, Selected Poems of 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, Collected Poems

“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, Selected Poems of 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, Selected Poems of Stevie Smith

“Hope and desire,
All unfulfilled,
Have more than rope
And hangman killed.”
― Stevie Smith, Selected Poems of 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, Selected Poems of 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, Selected Poems of 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, Selected Poems of 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

“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, Collected Poems

“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, Selected Poems of Stevie Smith

“I am hungry to be interrupted
For ever and ever amen”
― 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

“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

“The pleasures of friendship are exquisite,
How pleasant to go to a friend on a visit!
I go to my friend, we walk on the grass,
And the hours and moments like minutes pass.”
― 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

“Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.

Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he’s dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.”
― 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

“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.

- God the Eater”
― Stevie Smith, Collected Poems

“We carry our own wilderness with us.”
― Stevie Smith, Over the Frontier

“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, Novel on Yellow Paper

“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, Selected Poems of 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, Novel on Yellow Paper