Quotes from T. S. Eliot

Webster was much possessed by deathAnd saw the skull beneath the skin.

Yet we have gone on living,Living and partly living.

Art never improves, but... the material of art is never quite the same.

For last year's words belong to last year's language And next year's words await another voice.

April is the cruellest month, breedingLilacs out of the dead land, mixingMemory and desire, stirringDull roots with spring rain.

It is a medium of entertainment which permits millions of people to listen to the same joke at the same time, and yet remain lonesome.

We are the hollow menWe are the stuffed menLeaning togetherHeadpiece filled with straw. Alas!

Two live as oneOne live as twoTwo live as threeUnder the bamUnder the booUnder the bamboo tree.

Business today consists in persuading crowds.

Someone said, "The dead writers are remote from us because we know so much more than they did." Precisely, and they are that which we know.

What seas what shores what gray rocks and what islandsWhat water lapping the bowAnd scent of pine and the woodthrush singing through the fogWhat images returnO my daughter.

A cold coming we had of it,Just the worst time of the year.

A play should give you something to think about. When I see a play and understand it the first time, then I know it can't be much good.

Knowledge is invariably a matter of degree: you cannot put your finger upon even the simplest datum and say this we know.

Since our concern was speech, and speech impelled usTo purify the dialect of the tribe.

For love would be love of the wrong thing there is yet faith, But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.

The hippopotamus's dayIs passed in sleep; at night he hunts;God works in a mysterious way—The Church can sleep and feed at once.

The readers of the Boston Evening TranscriptSway in the wind like a field of ripe corn.

The dancers are all gone under the hill.

Just when you think you're on the point of releaseFrom loneliness, then loneliness swoops down upon you.

More can be learned about how to write poetry from Dante than from any English poet…. The language of each great English poet is his own language; the language of Dante is the perfection of a common language.

His laughter tinkled among the teacups.

The general point of view may be described as classicist in literature, royalist in politics, and Anglo-Catholic in religion.

Footfalls echo in the memory Down the passage which we did not take Towards the door we never opened