Collected Poems, 1909-1962 Quotes

“music heard so deeply
That it is not heard at all, but
you are the music
While the music lasts.”
― T.S. Eliot, Collected Poems, 1909-1962

“You do not know how much they mean to me, my friends,
And how, how rare and strange it is, to find
In a life composed so much, so much of odds and ends,
(For indeed I do not love it ... you knew? you are not blind! How keen you are!)
To find a friend who has these qualities,
Who has, and gives
Those qualities upon which friendship lives.
How much it means that I say this to you-
Without these friendships-life, what cauchemar!”
― T.S. Eliot, Collected Poems, 1909-1962

“Now that the lilacs are in bloom
She has a bowl of lilacs in her room”
― T.S. Eliot, Collected Poems, 1909-1962

“Yet with these April sunsets, that somehow recall
My buried life, and Paris in the spring,
I feel immeasurably at peace, and find the world
To be wonderful and youthful afterall”
― T.S. Eliot, Collected Poems, 1909-1962

“The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms”
― T.S. Eliot, Collected Poems, 1909-1962

“And what you thought you came for
is only a shell, a husk of meaning
from which the purpose breaks only when it is fulfilled
if at all. Either you had no purpose
or the purpose is beyond the end you figured
And is altered in fulfillment.”
― T. S. Eliot, Collected Poems, 1909-1962

“Honest criticism and sensible appreciation are directed not upon the poet but upon the poetry.”
― T.S. Eliot, Collected Poems, 1909-1962

“Knowledge of speech, but not of silence;
Knowledge of words, and ignorance of the Word...
Where is the Life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?”
― T.S. Eliot, Collected Poems, 1909-1962

“I decided that if the shaking of her breasts could be stopped, some of the fragments of the afternoon might be collected, and I concentrated my attention with careful subtlety to this end.”
― T.S. Eliot, Collected Poems, 1909-1962

“And in short, I was afraid.”
― T.S. Eliot, Collected Poems, 1909-1962

“Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;”
― T S Eliot, Collected Poems, 1909–1962

“Daffodil bulbs instead of balls
Stared from the sockets of the eyes!
He knew that thought clings round dead limbs
Tightening its lusts and luxuries.”
― T.S. Eliot, Collected Poems, 1909-1962

“We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.”
― T.S. Eliot, Collected Poems, 1909-1962

“Words strain, Crack and sometimes break, under the burden, Under the tension, slip, slide, perish, Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place, Will not stay still.”
― T.S. Eliot, Collected Poems 1909-1962

“I could see nothing behind that child’s eye. 40
I have seen eyes in the street
Trying to peer through lighted shutters,
And a crab one afternoon in a pool,
An old crab with barnacles on his back,
Gripped the end of a stick which I held him.”
― T.S. Eliot, Collected Poems, 1909-1962

“Under the penitential gates
Sustained by staring Seraphim
Where the souls of the devout
Burn invisible and dim.”
― T.S. Eliot, Collected Poems, 1909-1962

“Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse”
― T.S. Eliot, Collected Poems, 1909-1962

“Time and the bell have buried the day,
The black cloud carries the sun away.
Will the sunflower turn to us, will the clematis
Stray down, bend to us; tendril and spray
Clutch and cling?

Chill
Fingers of yew be curled
Down on us? After the kingfisher's wing
Has answered light to light, and is silent, the light is still
At the still point of the turning world.”
― T.S. Eliot, Collected Poems, 1909-1962

“Let us go then, you and I, When the evening is spread out against the sky”
― T.S. Eliot, Collected Poems, 1909-1962