74 Quotes by Siegfried Sassoon

For it is humanly certain that most of us remember very little of what we have read. To open almost any book a second time is to be reminded that we had forgotten well-nigh everything that the writer told us. Parting from the narrator and his narrative, we retain only a fading impression; and he, as it were, takes the book away from us and tucks it under his arm.

The dead...are more real than the living because they are complete.

The fact is that five years ago I was, as near as possible, a different person to what I am tonight. I, as I am now, didn’t exist at all. Will the same thing happen in the next five years? I hope so.

Let my soul, a shining tree, Silver branches lift towards thee, Where on a hallowed winter’s night The clear-eyed angels may alight.

Who’s this – alone with stone and sky? It’s only my old dog and I – It’s only him; it’s only me; Alone with stone and grass and tree. What share we most – we two together? Smells, and awareness of the weather. What is it makes us more than dust? My trust in him; in me his trust.

I didn’t want to die – not before I’d finished reading The Return of the Native anyhow.

But I’ve grown thoughtful now. And you have lost Your early-morning freshness of surprise At being so utterly mine: you’ve learned to fear The gloomy, stricken places in my soul, And the occasional ghosts that haunt my gaze.

Soldiers are citizens of death’s grey land, drawing no dividend from time’s tomorrows.

Mud and rain and wretchedness and blood. Why should jolly soldier-boys complain? God made these before the roofless Flood – Mud and rain.