Edith Sitwell

I wish the government would put a tax on pianos for the incompetent.

My personal hobbies are reading, listening to music, and silence.

Eccentricity is not, as some would believe, a form of madness. It is often a kind of innocent pride, and the man of genius and the aristocrat are frequently regarded as eccentrics because genius and aristocrat are entirely unafraid of and uninfluenced by the opinions and vagaries of the crowd.

Poetry is the deification of reality.

The public will believe anything, so long as it is not founded on truth.

I am patient with stupidity but not with those who are proud of it.

A great many people now reading and writing would be better employed in keeping rabbits.

Why not be oneself? That is the whole secret of a successful appearance. If one is a greyhound why try to look like a Pekingese?

I am dying but otherwise I am quite well.

Poetry ennobles the heart and the eyes and unveils the meaning of all things upon which the heart and the eyes dwell. It discovers the secret rays of the universe and restores to us forgotten paradises.

Hot water is my native element. I was in it as a baby and I have never seemed to get out of it ever since.

I am not eccentric. It's just that I am more alive than most people. I am an unpopular electric eel set in a pond of catfish.

I have often wished I had time to cultivate modesty...But I am too busy thinking about myself.

Said the Sun to the Moon-'When you are but a lonely white crone,And I, a dead King in my golden armour somewhere in a dark wood,Remember only this of our hopeless loveThat never till Time is doneWill the fire of the heart and the fire of the mind be one

Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand and for a talk beside the fire: it is the time for home.

All day long you sit and sew,Stitch life down for fear it grow,Stitch life down for fear we guessAt the hidden ugliness.Dusty voice that throbs with heat,Hoping with your steel-thin beatTo put stitches in my mind,Make it tidy, make it kind,You shall not: I'll keep it freeThough you turn earth, sky and seaTo a patchwork quilt to keepYour mind snug and warm in sleep!

Answers I kept my answers small and kept them near;Big questions bruised my mind but still I letSmall answers be a bullwark to my fear.The huge abstractions I kept from the light;Small things I handled and caressed and loved.I let the stars assume the whole of night.But the big answers clamoured to be moved Into my life. Their great audacityShouted to be acknowledged and believed.Even when all small answers build up toProtection of my spirit, still I hearBig answers striving for their overthrow.And all the great conclusions coming near

The fusty showman fumbles, must Fit in a particle of dustThe universe, for fear it gainIts freedom from my cube of brain.Yet dust bears seeds that grow to graceBehind my crude-striped wooden faceAs I, a puppet tinsel-pinkLeap on my springs, learn how to think__ill like the trembling golden stalkOf some long-petalled star, I walkThrough the dark heavens, and the dewFalls on my eyes and sense thrills through.