T. S. Eliot Quotes, Writing Quotes, Agony Quotes

What profession is more trying than that of author? After you finish a piece of work it only seems good to you for a few weeks; or if it seems good at all you are convinced that it is the last you will be able to write; and if it seems bad you wonder whether everything you have done isn’t poor stuff really; and it is one kind of agony while you are writing, and another kind when you aren’t.

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Tags : T. S. Eliot Quotes , Writing Quotes , Agony Quotes

A heap of broken images, where the sun beats, And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief, And the dry stone no sound of water. Only There is shadow under this red rock, (Come in under the shadow of this red rock), And I will show you something different from either Your shadow at morning striding behind you Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you; I will show you fear in a handful of dust.

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Tags : T. S. Eliot Quotes , Morning Quotes , Fear Quotes

In a world of fugitives, the person taking the opposite direction will appear to run away.

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Tags : T. S. Eliot Quotes , Running Quotes , Opposites Quotes

The Nobel is a ticket to one's own funeral. No one has ever done anything after he got it.

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Tags : T. S. Eliot Quotes , Funeral Quotes , Done Quotes

The Rum Turn Tugger is a terrible bore: When you let him in, then he wants to be out; He's always on the wrong side of every door, And as soon as he's at home, then he'd like to get about.

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Tags : T. S. Eliot Quotes , Home Quotes , Doors Quotes

Nothing pleases people more than to go on thinking what they have always thought, and at the same time imagine that they are thinking something new and daring: it combines the advantage of security and the delight of adventure.

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Tags : T. S. Eliot Quotes , Adventure Quotes , Thinking Quotes

Before a cat will condescend to treat you as a trusted friend, some little token of esteem is needed, like a dish of cream.

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Tags : T. S. Eliot Quotes , Cat Quotes , Animal Quotes

Let us go then, you and I, When the evening is spread out against the sky Like a patient etherised upon a table; Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets, The muttering retreats 5 Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells: Streets that follow like a tedious argument Of insidious intent To lead you to an overwhelming question … 10 Oh, do not ask, “What is it?” Let us go and make our visit. In the room the women come and go Talking of Michelangelo.

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Tags : T. S. Eliot Quotes , Night Quotes , Oysters Quotes

Poetry is not an assertion of truth, but the making of that truth more fully real to us.

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Tags : T. S. Eliot Quotes , Real Quotes , Poetry Is Quotes

A book is not harmless merely because no one is consciously offended by it.

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Tags : T. S. Eliot Quotes , Book Quotes , Reading Quotes

When war is not just it is subsequently justified; so it becomes many things. In reality, an unjust war is merely piracy. It consists of piracy, ego and, more than anything, money. War is our century's prostitution.

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Tags : T. S. Eliot Quotes , War Quotes , Reality Quotes

Why should men love the Church? Why should they love her laws? She tells them of Life and Death, and of all that they would forget.

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Tags : T. S. Eliot Quotes , Men Quotes , Law Quotes

We read many books, because we cannot know enough people.

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Tags : T. S. Eliot Quotes , Book Quotes , People Quotes

If all time is eternally present, all time is unredeemable

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Tags : T. S. Eliot Quotes , All Time Quotes

For most of us, there is only the unattended Moment, the moment in and out of time, The distraction fit, lost in a shaft of sunlight, The wild thyme unseen, or the winter lightning Or the waterfall, or music heard so deeply That it is not heard at all, but you are the music While the music lasts

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Tags : T. S. Eliot Quotes , Winter Quotes , Waterfalls Quotes

A woman drew her long black hair out tight, And fiddled whisper music on those strings, And bats with baby faces in the violet light Whistled, and beat their wings, And crawled head downward down a blackened wall.

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Tags : T. S. Eliot Quotes , Baby Quotes , Wall Quotes

Here I am, an old man in a dry month, Being read to by a boy, waiting for rain.

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Tags : T. S. Eliot Quotes , Rain Quotes , Boys Quotes

Tennyson and Browning are poets, and they think; but they do not feel their thought as immediately as the odour of a rose. A thought to Donne was an experience; it modified his sensibility.

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Tags : T. S. Eliot Quotes , Thinking Quotes , Rose Quotes

If the lost word is lost, if the spent word is spent If the unheard, unspoken Word is unspoken, unheard; Still is the spoken word, the Word unheard, The Word without a word, the Word within The world and for the world; And the light shone in the darkness and Against the Word the unstilled world still whirled About the center of the silent Word. Oh my people, what have I done unto thee. Where shall the word be found, where shall the word Resound? Not here, there is not enough silence

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Tags : T. S. Eliot Quotes , Light Quotes , People Quotes

Each venture Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate With shabby equipment always deteriorating In the general mess of imprecision of feeling.

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Tags : T. S. Eliot Quotes , New Beginnings Quotes , Feelings Quotes