Edith Sitwell

I wish the government would put a tax on pianos for the incompetent.

— Edith Sitwell

I have often wished I had time to cultivate modesty... But I am too busy thinking about myself.

— Edith Sitwell

I have taken this step because I want the discipline, the fire and the authority of the Church. I am hopelessly unworthy of it, but I hope to become worthy.

— Edith Sitwell

My poems are hymns of praise to the glory of life.

— Edith Sitwell

As for the usefulness of poetry, its uses are many. It is the deification of reality. It should make our days holy to us. The poet should speak to all men, for a moment, of that other life of theirs that they have smothered and forgotten.

— Edith Sitwell

The poet is a brother speaking to a brother of "a moment of their other lives" — a moment that had been buried beneath the dust of the busy world.

— Edith Sitwell

I am an unpopular electric eel in a pool of catfish.

— Edith Sitwell

It is a part of the poet's work to show each man what he sees but does not know he sees.

— Edith Sitwell

The trouble with most Englishwomen is that they will dress as if they had been a mouse in a previous incarnation... they do not want to attract attention.

— Edith Sitwell

My personal hobbies are reading, listening to music, and silence.

— Edith Sitwell

A great many people now reading and writing would be better employed keeping rabbits.

— Edith Sitwell

Why not be oneself? That is the whole secret of a successful appearance. If one is a greyhound, why try to look like a Pekingese?

— Edith Sitwell

I wish the government would put a tax on pianos for the incompetent.

— Edith Sitwell

I am one of those unhappy persons who inspire bores to the greatest flights of art.

— Edith Sitwell

Hot water is my native element. I was in it as a baby, and I have never seemed to get out of it ever since.

— Edith Sitwell

Tall windows show Infinity; Slowly enveloped me.

— Edith Sitwell

Within your magic web of hair, lies furledWhen all the stars of heaven sang for joy.

— Edith Sitwell

White as a winding sheet, The world's floors are quaking, crumbling and breaking.

— Edith Sitwell

Oh how the VacancyMeaningless circles are!"

— Edith Sitwell

Still falls the Rain — Upon the Cross.

— Edith Sitwell

Still falls the RainChrist that each day, each night, nails there, have mercy on us —

— Edith Sitwell

Still falls the Rain — In the self-murdered heart, the wounds of the sad uncomprehending dark...

— Edith Sitwell

See, see where Christ's blood streames in the firmament: "Still do I love, still shed my innocent light, my Blood, for thee."

— Edith Sitwell

The great gold planet that is the mourning heat of the SunMore powerful than all dust.

— Edith Sitwell

The flames of the heart consumed me, and the mindIs but a foolish wind.

— Edith Sitwell

Remember only this of our hopeless loveWill the fire of the heart and the fire of the mind be one.

— Edith Sitwell

Mother or Murderer, you haveNow all is one!

— Edith Sitwell

Our hearts seemed safe in our breasts and sang to theWere springs of Deity.

— Edith Sitwell

The living blind and seeing Dead together lieAnd no more love; Gone is the heart of Man.

— Edith Sitwell

The public will believe anything, so long as it is not founded on truth.

— Edith Sitwell

Eccentricity is not, as dull people would have us believe, a form of madness. It is often a kind of innocent pride, and the man of genius and the aristocrat are frequently regarded as eccentrics because genius and aristocrat are entirely unafraid of and uninfluenced by the opinions and vagaries of the crowd.

— Edith Sitwell

Vulgarity is, in reality, nothing but a modern, chic, pert descendant of the goddess Dullness.

— Edith Sitwell

I'm not the man to baulk at a low smell,It sounds like that. I belch, I bawl, I drink.

— Edith Sitwell

There are people, also, who cannot believe that beauty and gaiety are a part of goodness. When we think of cruelty, we must try to remember the stupidity, the envy, the frustration from which it has arisen.

— Edith Sitwell

I am patient with stupidity but not with those who are proud of it.

— Edith Sitwell

I wouldn't dream of following a fashion... how could one be a different person every three months?

— Edith Sitwell

I wish the government would put a tax on pianos for the incompetent.

— Edith Sitwell

The aim of flattery is to soothe and encourage us by assuring us of the truth of an opinion we have already formed about ourselves.

— Edith Sitwell

I am resigned to the fact that people who don't know me loathe me. Perhaps it is because I am a woman writing poetry. It must be annoying to a man who wants to write to see this horrid old lady who can.

— Edith Sitwell

Good taste is the worst vice ever invented.

— Edith Sitwell

I wish the government would put a tax on pianos for the incompetent.

— Edith Sitwell