The Wasteland Quotes

“May I exchange T.S. Eliot’s The Wasteland
with the future of this earth like a lunatic’s dreams
and make one season of poetry farming
by tilling with the pen of desire.”
― Suman Pokhrel

“Unreal City,
Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,
A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,
I had not thought death had undone so many.
Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,
And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.
Flowed up the hill and down King William Street,
To where St Mary Woolnoth kept the hours
With a dead sound on the final stock of nine.
There I saw one I knew, and stopped him crying: 'Stetson!
You, who were with me in the ships at Mylae!
That corpse you planted last year in your garden,
Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?
Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed?
Oh keep the Dog far hence, that's friend to men,
Or with his nails he'll dig it up again!
You! hypocrite lecteur!-mon semblable,-mon frere!”
― T.S. Eliot, Selected Poems

“A sullied green “S” stood out on a graying backdrop that made for a road marker up there. We called it the wasteland.”
― Katherine McIntyre, Snatched

“Is there any way out of the Wasteland? Where are the knights, where are the heroes, to restore the land? Who will heal the wounds? Who will listen to the cries and lamentations of the people? Out of the depths, we cry to thee! Don’t wait for any saviors. Save yourself. Control your own destiny. Stand up and be counted. The land will be healed only when the people are healed. The psyche of the people is damaged. Humanity is wounded. How do you solve a problem like humanity? Can humans solve their own problems? Who amongst them has the wisdom?”
― Mark Romel, The Wasteland: America's Search for Redemption

“Here one can neither stand nor lie nor sit”
― King Vortigern/T.S. Eliot