Stevie Smith Quotes

Stevie Smith offers quirky, emotive reflections on love and religion for readers who enjoy odd humor.

27 quotes

1. This Englishwoman is so refined She has no bosom and no behind.

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. Was he married, did he try To support as he grew less fond of them Wife and family?

5. He did not love in the human way.

6. To choose a god of love, as he did and does, Is a little move then? Yes, it is. A larger one will be when men Love love and hate hate but do not deify them? It will be a larger one.

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

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

9. All the same, there is a difficulty. I should like him to be happy in heaven here, But he cannot come by wishing. Only by being already at home here.

10. 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.

11. No man has seen her, this pitiful ghost, And no woman either, but heard her at most, Sighing and tapping and sighing again, You have weaned me too soon, you must nurse me again.

12. The boat that took my love away He sent again to me To tell me that he would not sleep Alone beneath the sea.

13. The flower and fruit of love are mine The ant, the fieldmouse and the mole

14. Why does my Muse only speak when she is unhappy? She does not, I only listen when I am unhappy.

15. 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.

16. 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.

17. 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.

18. If a lady comes up to you and tells you that your dear mama is lying in a faint on the pavement round the corner, don't you believe her, don't have anything to do with her, do not go with her into the cab. It is the White Slave Traffic.

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

20. I like food, I like stripping vegetables of their skins, I like to have a slim young parsnip under my knife.

21. 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.

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

23. 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.

24. 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.

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

26. If I lie down on my bed I must be here, But if I lie down in my grave I may be elsewhere.

27. Christianity in the suburb is cheerful. The church is a centre of social activity and those who go to church need never be lonely.