“Begin with the soft smelted upturned heart-shaped mouth made for smiling a smile kept for kindness, tenderness, incapable of malice. Am I going too fast for you? The almond eyes see out through their sleepy epicanthic fold. Trusting and calm, if a flicker from slowness, a further flicker from stupidity. Settled in slow-motion beauty, heart-breaking beauty.” BeautyDown Syndrome Author:Craig Raine
“He was making music - Howells, Finzi, Holst - so you could see the sounds in the serried air. Serried. Then just as suddenly empty when his sound-proof right hand closed off the notes.” MusicConductor Author:Craig Raine
“In his autobiography Stravinsky relates that the first music he remembers was made by a peasant, working his hand in his armpit to produce a rhytmic farting.” MusicHumourStravinsky Book:Heartbreak Source: Heartbreak
“In the morning, when she walked to the consulate, carefully watching her sandals on the pavement, she glanced up and saw a Negro wearing a stack of panama hats. Maybe twelve. She never forgot the bandoeon of brims, the perfect stutter of hat.” Metaphor Book:Heartbreak Source: Heartbreak
“Caxtons are mechanical birds with many wings And some are treasured for their markings - They cause the eyes to melt Or the body to shriek without pain.” BodyEyePainCausesBirdWingsTreasuredWithout Pain Book:My Grandmother's Glass Eye: A Look at Poetry Source: My Grandmother's Glass Eye: A Look at Poetry
“Great writers arrive among us like new diseases - threatening, powerful, impatient for patients to pick up their virus, irresistible.” WritingPowerfulDiseasePicksThreatPatientThreateningImpatientIrresistibleVirusesGreat Writers Book:In Defence of T. S. Eliot Source: In Defence of T. S. Eliot
“The task of the artist at any time is uncompromisingly simple to discover what has not yet been done, and to do it.” DoneArtistSimpleTasks Book:Haydn and The Valve Trumpet Source: Haydn and The Valve Trumpet
“I used to carry a copy of Ulysses with me everywhere just in case I was knocked down by a bus. It seemed more important than having clean underwear.” ImportantUsedCasesCleanCopiesBusUnderwearKnocked DownUlyssesClean Underwear Author:Craig Raine