Quotes from D. H. Lawrence

Never trust the artist. Trust the tale. The proper function of the critic is to save the tale from the artist who created it.

Good God, what does it matter? If life is a tragedy, or a farce, or a disaster, or anything else, what do I care! Let life be what it likes. Give me a drink, that's what I want just now.

Now go away then, and leave me alone. I don't want any more of your meretricious persiflage.

You love me so much, you want to put me in your pocket. And I should die there smothered.

I prefer unlucky things. Luck is vulgar. Who wants what luck would bring? I don't.

I have a very great fear of love. It is so personal. Let each bird fly with its own wings, and each fish swim its own course.--Morning brings more than love. And I want to be true to the morning.

That's how women are with me " said Paul. "They want me like mad but they don't want to belong to me.

With a woman, a man always wants to let himself go. And it is precisely with a woman that he should never let himself go ... but stick to his innermost belief and meet her just there.

And woman is the same as horses: two wills act in opposition inside her. With one will she wants to subject herself utterly. With the other she wants to bolt, and pitch her rider to perdition.

You have striven so hard, and so long, to compel life. Can't you now slowly change, and let life slowly drift into you ... let the invisible life steal into you and slowly possess you.

Art-speech is the only truth. An artist is usually a damned liar but his art, if it be art, will tell you the truth of his day. And that is all that matters. Away with eternal truth. The truth lives from day to day, and the marvelous Plato of yesterday is chiefly bosh today.

In the ancient recipe, the three antidotes for dullness or boredom are sleep, drink, and travel. It is rather feeble. From sleep you wake up, from drink you become sober, and from travel you come home again. And then where are you? No, the two sovereign remedies for dullness are love or a crusade.

The young Cambridge group, the group that stood for "freedom" and flannel trousers and flannel shirts open at the neck, and a well-bred sort of emotional anarchy, and a whispering, murmuring, sort of voice, and an ultra-sensitive sort of manner.

Loud peace propaganda makes war seem imminent.

When one jumps over the edge, one is bound to land somewhere.

There is no such thing as liberty. You only change one sort of domination for another. All we can do is to choose our master.

The human soul needs actual beauty more than bread.

The only justice is to follow the sincere intuition of the soul, angry or gentle. Anger is just, and pity is just, but judgement is never just.

The soul is a very perfect judge of her own motions, if your mind doesn't dictate to her.

I hate the actor and audience business. An author should be in among the crowd, kicking their shins or cheering them on to some mischief or merriment.

It is our business to go as we are impelled.

The mind can assert anything, and pretend it has proved it. My beliefs I test on my body, on my intuitional consciousness, and when I get a response there, then I accept.

When I read Shakespeare I am struck with wonder that such trivial people should muse and thunder in such lovely language.

While we live, let us live.