Quotes from R. S. Thomas

The furies are at home in the mirror; it is their address. Even the clearest water, if deep enough can drown. Never think to surprise them. Your face approaching ever so friendly is the white flag they ignore. There is no truce with the furies. A mirror's temperature is always at zero. It is ice in the veins. Its camera is an X—ray. It is a chalice held out to you in silent communion, where gaspingly you partake of a shifting identity never your own.

the silence Holds with its gloved hand The wild hawk of the mind.

I am a man now. Pass your hand over my brow. You can feel the place where the brains grow.

I have been Merlin wandering in the woods Of a far country, where the winds waken Unnatural voices , my mind broken By a sudden acquaintance with man's rage.

Poetry is that / which arrives at the intellect / by way of the heart.

Man is a dream about a shadow. But when some splendour falls upon him from God, a glory comes to him and his life is sweet.

In the silence that is his chosen medium of communication and telling others about it in words. Is there no way not to be the sport of reason?

The old men ask for more time; the young waste it. And the philosopher simply smiles, knowing there is none there.

Art is recuperation from time. I lie back convalescing upon the prospect of a harvest already at hand.

somewhere within sight of the tree of poetry that is eternity wearing the green leaves of time .

Imaginative truth is the most immediate way of presenting ultimate reality to a human being... ultimate reality is what we call God.

The darkness is the deepening shadow of your presence; the silence a process in the metabolism of the being of love.

I have been all men known to history, Wondering at the world and at time passing; I have seen evil, and the light blessing Innocent love under a spring sky.

I am left alone on the surface of a turning planet.

Verse should be as natural As the small tuber that feeds on muck And grows slowly from obtuse soil To the white flower of immortal beauty

A recurring ideal, I find, is that of simplicity. At times there comes the desire to write with great precision and clarity, words so simple and moving that they bring tears to the eyes.

Is there a place here for the spirit ? Is there time on this brief platform for anything other than mind 's failure to explain itself?