Quotes by Stephen Spender

Stephen Spender

A poet has to adapt himself, more or less consciously,to the demands of his vocation, and hence the peculiarities of poets and the condition of inspiration which many people have said is near to madness… The problem of creative writing is essentially one of concentration… a focusing of the attention in a special way.

Inspiration

People

Writing

All one can do is to achieve nakedness, to be what one is with all one’s faculties and perceptions, strengthened by all the skill which one can acquire. And then to stand before the judgement of time.

Achievement

Judgement

Skills

All that you can imagine you already know.

Imagination

Imagine

Knows

All the lessons learned, unlearned; The young, who learned to read, now blind, Their eyes with an archaic film; The peasant relapses to a stumbling tune, Following the donkey’s bray; These only remember to forget. But somewhere some word presses, On the high door of a skull and in some corner, Of an irrefrangible eye, Some old man memory jumps to a child – Spark from the days of energy. And the child hoards it like a bitter toy.

Children

Eye

Memories

All the posters on the walls All the leaflets in the streets Are mutilated, destroyed or run in rain, Their words blotted out with tears, Skins peeling from their bodies In the victorious hurricane.

Rain

Running

Wall

Although Poets are vain and ambitious, their vanity and ambition are of the purest kind attainable in this world. They are ambitious to be accepted for what they altimately are as revealed in their poetry.

Ambition

Ambitious

Vanity

An English poet writes, I think, just for people who are interested in poetry. An American poet writes, and feels that everyone ought to appreciate this. Then he has a deep sense of grievance . . .

People

Thinking

Writing

Bright clasp of her whole hand around my finger My daughter as we walk together now. All my life I’ll feel a ring invisibly Circle this bone with shining When she is grown.

Daughter

Father

Hands

But reading is not idleness?it is the passive, receptive side of civilization without which the active and creative world would be meaningless. It is the immortal spirit of the dead realised within the bodies of the living. It is sacramental.

Civilization

Creative

Reading

Cult: simply an extension of the idea that everyone’s supreme aim in life is self- fulfillment and happiness and that one is entitled to wreck marriage, children and certainly one’s health and sanity in pursuit of this.

Children

Ideas

Self

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Able

Accepting

Achievement

Affair

Age

Aim

Air

Alive

Ambition

Ambitious

America

Angel

Army

Art

Atmosphere

Bird

Block

Body

Boys

Brother

Can Do

Certain

Chaos

Children

Church

Civilization

Clouds

Confusion

Corridors

Courage

Creative

Creativity

Criticism

Cutting

Dark

Daughter

Despair

Different

Doe

Dream

Dust

Edges

Effort

Empty

Events

Eye

Father

Fathers Day

Feet

Finals

The Future Blueprint

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The Home Therapist: Anti Anxiety

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The Autobiography

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The Behaviour Diary

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The Dating Diary

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The Relationship Therapist

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Quotes by Stephen Spender

Stephen Spender

All one can do is to achieve nakedness, to be what one is with all one’s faculties and perceptions, strengthened by all the skill which one can acquire. And then to stand before the judgement of time.

All that you can imagine you already know.

All the posters on the walls All the leaflets in the streets Are mutilated, destroyed or run in rain, Their words blotted out with tears, Skins peeling from their bodies In the victorious hurricane.

Although Poets are vain and ambitious, their vanity and ambition are of the purest kind attainable in this world. They are ambitious to be accepted for what they altimately are as revealed in their poetry.

An English poet writes, I think, just for people who are interested in poetry. An American poet writes, and feels that everyone ought to appreciate this. Then he has a deep sense of grievance . . .

Bright clasp of her whole hand around my finger My daughter as we walk together now. All my life I’ll feel a ring invisibly Circle this bone with shining When she is grown.

But reading is not idleness?it is the passive, receptive side of civilization without which the active and creative world would be meaningless. It is the immortal spirit of the dead realised within the bodies of the living. It is sacramental.

Cult: simply an extension of the idea that everyone’s supreme aim in life is self- fulfillment and happiness and that one is entitled to wreck marriage, children and certainly one’s health and sanity in pursuit of this.

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The Future Blueprint

The Home Therapist: Anti Anxiety

The Autobiography

The Behaviour Diary

The Dating Diary

The Relationship Therapist

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