“People to whom nothing has ever happened cannot understand the unimportance of events.” Thomas Stearns Eliot
“The bad poet is usually unconscious where he ought to be conscious, and conscious where he ought to be unconscious.” Thomas Stearns Eliot Bad
“Moving between the legs of tables and of chairs, rising or falling, grasping at kisses and toys, advancing boldly, sudden to take alarm, retreating to the corner of arm and knee, eager to be reassured, taking pleasure in the fragrant brilliance of the Christmas tree.” Thomas Stearns Eliot KissOldTree
“Television is a medium of entertainment which permits millions of people to listen to the same joke at the same time, and yet remain lonesome.” Thomas Stearns Eliot Time
“As things are, and as fundamentally they must always be, poetry is not a career, but a mug's game. No honest poet can ever feel quite sure of the permanent value of what he has written: He may have wasted his time and messed up his life for nothing.” Thomas Stearns Eliot CareerCareFeelLifeTime
“We know too much, and are convinced of too little. Our literature is a substitute for religion, and so is our religion.” Thomas Stearns Eliot
“A play should give you something to think about. When I see a play and understand it the first time, then I know it can't be much good.” Thomas Stearns Eliot GoodPlayTime
“If you desire to drain to the dregs the fullest cup of scorn and hatred that a fellow human being can pour out for you, let a young mother hear you call dear baby "it."” Thomas Stearns Eliot DesireMotherYoung
“Any poet, if he is to survive beyond his 25th year, must alter; he must seek new literary influences; he will have different emotions to express.” Thomas Stearns Eliot EmotionSurvive
“Knowledge is invariably a matter of degree: you cannot put your finger upon even the simplest datum and say this we know.” Thomas Stearns Eliot Knowledge
“Our difficulties of the moment must always be dealt with somehow, but our permanent difficulties are difficulties of every moment.” Thomas Stearns Eliot
“Our high respect for a well read person is praise enough for literature.” Thomas Stearns Eliot HighRespect
“Poetry may make us from time to time a little more aware of the deeper, unnamed feelings which form the substratum of our being, to which we rarely penetrate; for our lives are mostly a constant evasion of ourselves.” Thomas Stearns Eliot FeelLifeTimeWarPoertyBeing
“Poetry should help, not only to refine the language of the time, but to prevent it from changing too rapidly.” Thomas Stearns Eliot RapTime
“The communication of the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living.” Thomas Stearns Eliot DeadFire
“The soul is so far from being a monad that we have not only to interpret other souls to ourself but to interpret ourself to ourself.” Thomas Stearns Eliot
“There is not a more repulsive spectacle than on old man who will not forsake the world, which has already forsaken him.” Thomas Stearns Eliot Old
“I am an Anglo-Catholic in religion, a classicist in literature and a royalist in politics.” Thomas Stearns Eliot Politics
“It is only in the world of objects that we have time and space and selves.” Thomas Stearns Eliot Time
