966 Quotes by D. H. Lawrence

I love Italian opera – it’s so reckless. Damn Wagner, and his bellowings at Fate and death. Damn Debussy, and his averted face. I like the Italians who run all on impulse, and don’t care about their immortal souls, and don’t worry about the ultimate.

Creatures that hang themselves up like an old rag, to sleep; And disgustingly upside down. Hanging upside down like rows of disgusting old rags And grinning in their sleep. Bats!

As we all know, too much of any divine thing is destruction.

A circle swoop, and a quick parabola under the bridge arches Where light pushes through; A sudden turning upon itself of a thing in the air. A dip to the water.

I am turned into a dream. I feel nothing, or I don’t know what I feel. Yet it seems to me I am happy.

Why does the thin grey strand Floating up from the forgotten Cigarette between my fingers, Why does it trouble me?

You live by what you thrill to, and there’s the end of it.

One should stick by one’s soul, and by nothing else. In one’s soul, one knows the truth from the untruth, and life from death. And if one betrays one’s own soul-knowledge one is the worst of traitors.

You don’t want to be an animal, you want to observe your own animal functions, so as to get a mental thrill out of them. It is allpurely secondary – and more decadent than the most hide-bound intellectualism.