Amy Lowell

“Take everything easy and quit dreaming and brooding and you will be well guarded from a thousand evils.”

“Hate is ravening vulture beaks descending on a place of skulls.”

“In science, read by preference the newest works. In literature, read the oldest. The classics are always modern.”

“Time! Joyless emblem of the greed of millions, robber of the best which earth can give.”

“I am tired, beloved, of chafing my heart against the want of you; of squeezing it into little ink drops, and posting it. And I scald alone, here, under the fire of the great moon.”

“A black cat among roses,phlox, lilac-misted under a quarter moon,the sweet smells of heliotrope and night-scented stock. The garden is very still.It is dazed with moonlight,contented with perfume...”

“Let us be of cheer, remembering that the misfortunes hardest to bear are those which never come.”

“Don’t ask a writer what he’s working on. It’s like asking someone with cancer on the progress of his disease.”

“Happiness, to some, elation; Is, to others, mere stagnation.”

“All books are either dreams or swords, you can cut, or you can drug, with words.”

“Youth condemns; maturity condones.”

“For books are more than books, they are the lifeThe very heart and core of ages past,The reason why men lived and worked and died,The essence and quintessence of their lives.”

“Art is the desire of a man to express himself, to record the reactions of his personality to the world he lives in.”

“I am tired, Beloved, of chafing my heart againstThe want of you;Of squeezing it into little inkdrops,And posting it.”

“You are ice and fire the touch of you burns my hands like snow.”

“All books are either dreams or swords,You can cut, or you can drug, with words.”

“Christ! What are patterns for?”

“The inkstand is full of ink, and the paper lies white and unspotted, in the round of light thrown by a candle. Puffs of darkness sweep into the corners, and keep rolling through the room behind his chair. The air is silver and pearl, for the night is liquid with moonlight.See how the roof glitters, like ice!Over there, a slice of yellow cuts into the silver-blue, and beside it stand two geraniums, purple because the light is silver-blue, to-night.”

“A man must be sacrificed now and again to provide for the next generation of men.”

“For books are more than books, they are the life, the very heart and core of ages past, the reason why men worked and died, the essence and quintessence of their lives.”