Quotes from Robert Graves

The supply of good women far exceeds that of the men who deserve them.

Take your delight in momentariness,Walk between dark and dark—a shining spaceWith the grave's narrowness, though not its peace.

The butterfly, a cabbage-white, (His honest idiocy of flight) Will never now, it is too late, Master the art of flying straight.

Impossible men: idle, illiterate,Self-pitying, dirty, sly,For whose appearance even in City ParksExcuses must be made to casual passers-by.Has God's supply of tolerable husbandsFallen, in fact, so lowOr do I always over-value womanAt the expense of man?Do I?It might be so.

If there's no money in poetry, neither is there poetry in money.

When I sound the fairy call, Gather here in silent meeting, Chin to knee on the orchard wall, Cooled with dew and cherries eating. Merry, merry, Take a cherry Mine are sounder, Mine are rounder Mine are sweeter, For the eater When the dews fall. And you'll be fairies all.

What we now call 'finance' is, I hold, an intellectual perversion of what began as warm human love.

A well-chosen anthology is a complete dispensary of medicine for the more common mental disorders, and may be used as much for prevention as cure.

The remarkable thing about Shakespeare is that he really is very good, in spite of all the people who say he is very good.

Originally marriage meant the sale of a woman by one man to another; now most women sell themselves though they have no intention of delivering the goods listed in the bill of sale.

Marriage, like money, is still with us and, like money, progressively devalued.

Anthropologists are a connecting link between poets and scientists though their field-work among primitive peoples has often made them forget the language of science.

There is no money in poetry, but then there is no poetry in money either.

Prose books are the show dogs I breed and sell to support my cat.

Lovers to-day and for all time Preserve the meaning of my rhyme: Love is not kindly nor yet grim But does to you as you to him.

New beginnings and new shoots Spring again from hidden roots Pull or stab or cut or burn, Love must ever yet return.

Every fairy child may keep Two strong ponies and ten sheep; All have houses, each his own, Built of brick or granite stone; They live on cherries, they run wild I'd love to be a Fairy's child.

As was the custom in such cases, the pear tree was charged with murder and sentenced to be uprooted and burned.

In love as in sport, the amateur status must be strictly maintained.

Fact is not truth, but a poet who wilfully defies fact cannot achieve truth.

Truth-loving Persians do not dwell upon The trivial skirmish fought near Marathon.

For words of rapture groping, they"Never such love," swore "ever before was!"

She tells her love while half asleep, In the dark hours, With half-words whispered low: As Earth stirs in her winter sleep And puts out grass and flowers Despite the snow, Despite the falling snow.

Love without hope, as when the young bird-catcher Swept off his tall hat to the Squire's own daughter, So let the imprisoned larks escape and fly Singing about her head, as she rode by.