Edith Sitwell Quotes

As quoted in The Observer (30 April 1950)

Yea and Nay : A series of lectures and counter-lectures given at the London school of economics in aid of the hospitals of London (1923) edited by C David Stelling, Section IV, Poetry and Modern Poetry
Context: Let us speak of our madness. We are always being called mad. If we are mad — we and our brothers in America who are walking hand in hand with us in the vanguard of progress — at least we are mad in company with most of our great predecessors and all the most intelligent foreigners. Beethoven, Schumann, and Wagner, Shelley, Blake, Keats, Coleridge, Wordsworth were all mad in turn. We shall be proud to join them in the Asylum to which they are now consigned.

As quoted in Reader's Digest Vol. 111, No. 666, (October 1977)

As quoted in An Uncommon Scold (1989) by Abby Adams, p. 176

Source: The Last Years of a Rebel (1967), p. 24

Still Falls the Rain (1940)

"Three Poems of the Atomic Bomb: Dirge for the New Sunrise"
The Canticle of the Rose (1949)
Context: Our hearts seemed safe in our breasts and sang to the
Light —
The marrow in the bone
We dreamed was safe... the blood in the veins, the
sap in the tree
Were springs of Deity.

"Three Poems of the Atomic Bomb: Dirge for the New Sunrise"
The Canticle of the Rose (1949)

Still Falls the Rain (1940)
Context: See, see where Christ's blood streames in the firmament:
It flows from the Brow we nailed upon the tree Deep to the dying, to the thirsting heart
That holds the fires of the world, — dark-smirched with pain
As Caesar's laurel crown. Then sounds the voice of One who like the heart of man
Was once a child who among beasts has lain —
"Still do I love, still shed my innocent light, my Blood, for thee."

Green Song & Other Poems (1944), Heart and Mind

Green Song & Other Poems (1944), Heart and Mind

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Still Falls the Rain (1940)

Source: Taken Care Of (1965), p. 221
Context: 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.

"Clowns' Houses"
Clowns' Houses (1918)
Context: p>The busy chatter of the heat
Shrilled like a parakeet;
And shuddering at the noonday light
The dust lay dead and whiteAs powder on a mummy's face,
Or fawned with simian grace
Round booths with many a hard bright toy
And wooden brittle joy:The cap and bells of Time the Clown
That, jangling, whistled down
Young cherubs hidden in the guise
Of every bird that flies;And star-bright masks for youth to wear,
Lest any dream that fare
— Bright pilgrim — past our ken, should see
Hints of Reality.</p

"The Web of Eros"
The Wooden Pegasus (1920)
Context: Within your magic web of hair, lies furled
The fire and splendour of the ancient world;
The dire gold of the comet's wind-blown hair;
The songs that turned to gold the evening air
When all the stars of heaven sang for joy.

"Clowns' Houses"
Clowns' Houses (1918)
Context: Tall windows show Infinity;
And, hard reality,
The candles weep and pry and dance
Like lives mocked at by Chance. The rooms are vast as Sleep within;
When once I ventured in,
Chill Silence, like a surging sea,
Slowly enveloped me.

The Last Years of a Rebel (1967)
Context: 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.

"The Last Gallop"
Façades (1922)
Context: White as a winding sheet,
Masks blowing down the street:
Moscow, Paris London, Vienna — all are undone.
The drums of death are mumbling, rumbling, and tumbling,
Mumbling, rumbling, and tumbling,
The world's floors are quaking, crumbling and breaking.

"Switchback"
Façades (1922)

On converting to Roman Catholicism at the age of 67, in news reports (15 Aug 1955), as quoted in Simpson’s Contemporary Quotations (1988) compiled by James B. Simpson

"One–Way Song", p. 118
Taken Care Of (1965)

Source: Taken Care Of (1965), Ch. 19

Still Falls the Rain (1940)

As quoted in Edith Sitwell: Fire of the Mind : an Anthology (1976) by Elizabeth Salter, p. 176

The Last Years of a Rebel (1967)

"Some notes on my poetry" Collected Poems (1957)

As quoted in Writers on Writing (1986) by Jon Winokur, p. 24

Source: Taken Care Of (1965), Ch. 15

Preface
Taken Care Of (1965)

As quoted in The Reader's Digest Great Encyclopedic Dictionary Special Supplement (1966), p. 2047

"Three Poems of the Atomic Bomb: Dirge for the New Sunrise"
The Canticle of the Rose (1949)

Source: The Last Years of a Rebel (1967), p. 24

Lecture "Young Poets" (1957) published in Mightier Than the Sword: The P.E.N. Hermon Ould Memorial Lectures, 1953-1961 (1964), p. 56
Variants:
Poetry is the deification of reality.
As quoted in Life magazine (4 January 1963)
The poet speaks to all men of that other life of theirs that they have smothered and forgotten.
As quoted in The Beacon Book of Quotations by Women (1992) by Rosalie Maggio, p. 247

As quoted in 20,000 Quips & Quotes (1995) by Evan Esa

Life magazine (4 January 1963) attributed variant: I am not eccentric. It's just that I am more alive than most people. I am an unpopular electric eel set in a pond of goldfish.

Still Falls the Rain (1940)

Quoted in Edith Sitwell, a Unicorn Among Lions (1981) by Victoria Glendinning, p. 54, and in An Uncommon Scold (1989) by Abby Adams, p. 74

Last words to her personal secretary (Elizabeth Salter) as she was being carried into an ambulance.
The Last Years of a Rebel (1967)

"The Poet's Vision" (1959)

The Last Years of a Rebel (1967)

As quoted in An Uncommon Scold (1989) by Abby Adams, p. 226

Source: The Last Years of a Rebel (1967), p. 24

"Clowns' Houses"
Clowns' Houses (1918)

a moment that had been buried beneath the dust of the busy world.
"The Poet's Vision" (1959)