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Dylan Thomas Quotes

Dylan Marlais Thomas was a Welsh poet and writer whose works include the poems "Do not go gentle into that good night" and "And death shall have no dominion"; the 'play for voices' Under Milk Wood; and stories and radio broadcasts such as A Child's Christmas in Wales and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog. He became widely popular in his lifetime and remained so after his premature death at the age of 39 in New York City. By then he had acquired a reputation, which he had encouraged, as a "roistering, drunken and doomed poet".Thomas was born in Swansea, Wales, in 1914. An undistinguished pupil, he left school at 16 and became a journalist for a short time. Many of his works appeared in print while he was still a teenager, and the publication in 1934 of "Light breaks where no sun shines" caught the attention of the literary world. While living in London, Thomas met Caitlin Macnamara, whom he married in 1937. In 1938, they moved to the Welsh fishing village of Laugharne where from 1949 they settled permanently and brought up their three children.

Thomas came to be appreciated as a popular poet during his lifetime, though he found earning a living as a writer difficult. He began augmenting his income with reading tours and radio broadcasts. His radio recordings for the BBC during the late 1940s brought him to the public's attention, and he was frequently used by the BBC as an accessible voice of the literary scene.

Thomas first travelled to the United States in the 1950s. His readings there brought him a degree of fame, while his erratic behaviour and drinking worsened. His time in America cemented his legend, however, and he went on to record to vinyl such works as A Child's Christmas in Wales. During his fourth trip to New York in 1953, Thomas became gravely ill and fell into a coma, from which he never recovered. He died on 9 November 1953. His body was returned to Wales, where he was interred at the churchyard of St Martin's in Laugharne on 25 November 1953.

Although Thomas wrote exclusively in the English language, he has been acknowledged as one of the most important Welsh poets of the 20th century. He is noted for his original, rhythmic and ingenious use of words and imagery. His position as one of the great modern poets has been much discussed, and he remains popular with the public. Wikipedia  

✵ 27. October 1914 – 9. November 1953  •  Other names Dylan Marlais Thomas, دیلن تامس
Dylan Thomas photo

Works

Under Milk Wood
Under Milk Wood
Dylan Thomas
Fern Hill
Dylan Thomas
A Child's Christmas in Wales
Under Milk Wood
Under Milk Wood
Dylan Thomas
Fern Hill
Dylan Thomas
A Child's Christmas in Wales
Dylan Thomas: 50 quotes20 likes

Famous Dylan Thomas Quotes

“I do not need any friends. I prefer enemies. They are better company and their feelings towards you are always genuine.”

Dylan Thomas

Source: The Doctor and the Devils

“Somebody's boring me. I think it's me.”

Dylan Thomas

“Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

Dylan Thomas

Source: In Country Sleep, and Other Poems

“It snowed last year too: I made a snowman and my brother knocked it down and I knocked my brother down and then we had tea.”

Dylan Thomas book A Child's Christmas in Wales

Source: A Child's Christmas in Wales

“A good poem is a contribution to reality. The world is never the same once a good poem has been added to it. A good poem helps to change the shape of the universe, helps to extend everyone's knowledge of himself and the world around him.”

Dylan Thomas

Dylan Thomas Quotes about the sea

“It is spring, moonless night in the small town, starless and bible-black, the cobblestreets silent and the hunched, courters'-and-rabbits' wood limping invisible down to the sloeblack, slow, black, crowblack, fishingboat-bobbing sea. The houses are blind as moles (though moles see fine tonight in the snouting, velvet dingles) or blind as Captain Cat there in the muffled middle by the pump and the town clock, the shops in mourning, the Welfare Hall in widows' weeds. And all the people of the lulled and dumbfound town are sleeping now.”

Dylan Thomas book Under Milk Wood

Source: " Under Milk Wood http://www.undermilkwood.net/prose_umw1.html" (1954)

“Light breaks where no sun shines;
Where no sea runs, the waters of the heart
Push in their tides”

Dylan Thomas

&quot; Light Breaks Where No Sun Shines http://www.internal.org/view_poem.phtml?poemID=265&quot;, st. 1 (1934), st. 1 <br class="br">Context: Light breaks where no sun shines;<br>Where no sea runs, the waters of the heart<br>Push in their tides;<br>And, broken ghosts with glow-worms in their heads,<br>The things of light<br>File through the flesh where no flesh decks the bones.

“The only sea I saw Was the seesaw sea With you riding on it. Lie down, lie easy. Let me shipwreck in your thighs.”

Dylan Thomas book Under Milk Wood

Source: Under Milk Wood

“Time held me green and dying
Though I sang in my chains like the sea.”

Dylan Thomas Fern Hill

St. 6
Variant: I sang in my chains like the sea
Source: Fern Hill (1946)

“They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.”

Dylan Thomas

&quot; And Death Shall Have No Dominion http://www.internal.org/view_poem.phtml?poemID=277&quot;, st. 1 (1943) <br class="br">Source: Collected Poems

“An ugly, lovely town… crawling, sprawling… by the side of a long and splendid curving shore. This sea-town was my world.”

Dylan Thomas

Dylan Thomas Quotes about love

“Love is the last light spoken.”

Dylan Thomas

“Though lovers be lost, love shall not; And death shall have no dominion.”

Dylan Thomas

Variant: Though lovers be lost love shall not.

“I fell in love — that is the only expression I can think of — at once, and am still at the mercy of words, though sometimes now, knowing a little of their behavior very well, I think I can influence them slightly and have even learned to beat them now and then, which they appear to enjoy.”

Dylan Thomas

Poetic Manifesto, published in the Texas Quarterly (Winter 1961)

“When all my five and country senses see,
The fingers will forget green thumbs and mark
How, through the halfmoon's vegetable eye,
Husk of young stars and handfull zodiac,
Love in the frost is pared and wintered by.”

Dylan Thomas

&quot; When All My Five And Country Senses See http://www.poetryconnection.net/poets/Dylan_Thomas/1149&quot; (1939)

Dylan Thomas: Trending quotes

“And I rose
In rainy autumn
And walked abroad in a shower of all my days…”

Dylan Thomas

Source: Collected Poems

“Our discreditable secret is that we don't know anything at all, and our horrid inner secret is that we don't care that we don't.”

Dylan Thomas

Dylan Thomas Quotes

“Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

Dylan Thomas

&quot; Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night http://www.internal.org/view_poem.phtml?poemID=92&quot; (1952) <br class="br">Source: Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

“I hold a beast, an angel, and a madman in me, and my enquiry is as to their working, and my problem is their subjugation and victory, down throw and upheaval, and my effort is their self-expression.”

Dylan Thomas

“Poetry is not the most important thing in life… I'd much rather lie in a hot bath reading Agatha Christie and sucking sweets.”

Dylan Thomas

“[I'm]a freak user of words, not a poet.”

Dylan Thomas

“I hold a beast, an angel and a madman in me.”

Dylan Thomas

“Youth calls to age across the tired years: 'What have you found,' he cries, 'what have you sought?" 'What have you found,' age answers through his tears, 'What have you sought.”

Dylan Thomas

Source: The Poems of Dylan Thomas

“To begin, at the beginning…”

Dylan Thomas book Under Milk Wood

Source: Under Milk Wood

“Man’s wants remain unsatisfied till death.
Then, when his soul is naked, is he one
With the man in the wind, and the west moon,
With the harmonious thunder of the sun”

Dylan Thomas

“Come on up, boys
-I'm dead.”

Dylan Thomas book Under Milk Wood

Source: Under Milk Wood

“Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.”

Dylan Thomas

“This poem has been called obscure. I refuse to believe that it is obscurer than pity, violence, or suffering. But being a poem, not a lifetime, it is more compressed.”

Dylan Thomas

“In the sun that is young once only,
Time let me play and be
Golden in the mercy of his means.”

Dylan Thomas Fern Hill

St. 2
Fern Hill (1946)

“Light breaks on secret lots,
On tips of thought where thoughts smell in the rain;
When logics die,
The secret of the soil grows through the eye,
And blood jumps in the sun;
Above the waste allotments the dawn halts.”

Dylan Thomas

Light Breaks Where No Sun Shines, st. 1 (1934), st. 5

“The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees
Is my destroyer.
And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose
My youth is bent by the same wintry fever.”

Dylan Thomas

&quot; The Force That Through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower http://www.internal.org/view_poem.phtml?poemID=266&quot; (1934), st. 1

“And honoured among foxes and pheasants by the gay house
Under the new made clouds and happy as the heart was long,
In the sun born over and over,
I ran my heedless ways.”

Dylan Thomas Fern Hill

St. 5
Fern Hill (1946)

“And I saw in the turning so clearly a child's
Forgotten mornings when he walked with his mother
Through the parables
Of sunlight
And the legends of the green chapels.”

Dylan Thomas

&quot; Poem in October http://www.bigeye.com/october.htm&quot;, st. 5 (1946)

“Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs
About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,
The night above the dingle starry,
Time let me hail and climb
Golden in the heydays of his eyes.
And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns.”

Dylan Thomas Fern Hill

St. 1
Fern Hill (1946)

“Dawn breaks behind the eyes;
From poles of skull and toe the windy blood
Slides like a sea;
Nor fenced, nor staked, the gushers of the sky
Spout to the rod
Divining in a smile the oil of tears.”

Dylan Thomas

Light Breaks Where No Sun Shines, st. 1 (1934), st. 3

“And the sabbath rang slowly
In the pebbles of the holy streams.”

Dylan Thomas Fern Hill

St. 2
Fern Hill (1946)

“You can tear a poem apart to see what makes it technically tick… You're back with the mystery of having been moved by words. The best craftsmanship always leaves holes and gaps in the works of the poem so that something that is not in the poem can creep, crawl, flash, or thunder in. The joy and function of poetry is, and was, the celebration of man, which is also the celebration of God.”

Dylan Thomas

Poetic Manifesto

“The hand that signed the paper felled a city;
Five sovereign fingers taxed the breath,
Doubled the globe of dead and halved a country;
These five kings did a king to death.”

Dylan Thomas

&quot; The Hand that Signed the Paper Felled a City http://www.internal.org/view_poem.phtml?poemID=98&quot;, st. 1 (1936)

“After the first death, there is no other.”

Dylan Thomas

&quot; A Refusal To Mourn The Death, By Fire, Of A Child In London http://www.poetryconnection.net/poets/Dylan_Thomas/1093&quot;, st. 4 (1946)

“One Christmas was so much like another, in those years around the sea-town corner now, out of all sound except the distant speaking of the voices I sometimes hear a moment before sleep, that I can never remember whether it snowed for six days and six nights when I was twelve or whether it snowed for twelve days and twelve nights when I was six.”

Dylan Thomas

&quot; A Child&#x27;s Christmas in Wales http://www.undermilkwood.net/prose_christmas.html&quot;, from Quite Early One Morning (1954)

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