“It seems to me absolutely true, that our world, which appears to us the surface of all things, is really the bottom of a deep ocean: all our trees are submarine growths, and we are weird, scaly-clad submarine fauna, feeding ourselves on offal like shrimps. Only occasionally the soul rises gasping through the fathomless fathoms under which we live, far up to the surface of the ether, where there is true air.”

English novelist, poet, and painter

David Herbert Lawrence was an English writer, critic, and painter, active in the early 20th century. He wrote novels, stories, poems, plays, essays, and travel writing, and is best known for his modernist fiction. His work looks closely at modern life, industrial society, and the strain of social alienation, while also giving strong place to sexuality, vitality, and instinct. Four of his best-known novels, Sons and Lovers, The Rainbow, Women in Love, and Lady Chatterley's Lover, became the subject of censorship trials because of their frank treatment of romance, sexuality, and language.