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R. S. Thomas

R. S. Thomas Quotes

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Famous R. S. Thomas Quotes

“The furies are at home in the mirror; it is their address. Even the clearest water, if deep enough can drown. Never think to surprise them. Your face approaching ever so friendly is the white flag they ignore. There is no truce with the furies. A mirror’s temperature is always at zero. It is ice in the veins. Its camera is an X—ray. It is a chalice held out to you in silent communion, where gaspingly you partake of a shifting identity never your own.”

Poetry
Author:R. S. Thomas
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“Natural, hell! What was it Chaucer Said once about the long toil that goes like blood to the poems making? Leave it to nature and the verse sprawls, Limp as bindweed, if it break at all Life's iron crust Man, you must sweat And rhyme your guts taut, if you'd build Your verse a ladder.”

IfsMenLongSaidNaturalBreakHellBloodGutsIronSweatVersesRhymeToilLaddersChaucer
Book:Collected Poems: 1945-1990 R.S.Thomas: Collected Poems : R S Thomas
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“They left no books , Memorial to their lonely thought In grey parishes: rather they wrote On men's hearts and in the minds Of young children sublime words Too soon forgotten. God in his time Or out of time will correct this.”

MenMindHeartChildrenBookYoungLeftLonelyForgottenSublimeGreyMemorialYoung ChildrenParish
Book:Collected Poems: 1945-1990 R.S.Thomas: Collected Poems : R S Thomas
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“I had looked forward to old age as a time of quietness, a time to draw my horizons about me, to watch memories ripening in the sunlight of a walled garden. But there is the void over my head and the distance within that the tireless signals come from. And astronaut on impossible journeys to the far side of the self I return with messages I cannot decipher.”

SelfAgeSidesMemoriesWatchesImpossibleJourneyReturnMessagesDrawsGardenDistanceOld AgeHorizonVoidSunlightSignalsAstronautQuietnessWatch MeDecipherRipeningFar Side
Author:R. S. Thomas
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“The furies are at home in the mirror; it is their address. Even the clearest water, if deep enough can drown. Never think to surprise them. Your face approaching ever so friendly is the white flag they ignore. There is no truce with the furies. A mirror's temperature is always zero. It is ice in the veins. It's camera is an x-ray. It is a chalice held out to you in silent communion, where gaspingly you partake of a shifting identity never your own.”

IfsThinkingEnoughHomeFacesFearWaterWhiteAtheismIdentityMirrorsCamerasSilentSurpriseRageIceAddressesFriendlyZeroYour FaceRaysFlagsCommunionVeinsShiftingFuryTemperatureTruceChaliceWhite Flag
Author:R. S. Thomas
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“I have seen the sun break through to illuminate a small field for a while, and gone my way and forgotten it. But that was the pearl of great price, the one field that had treasure in it. I realize now that I must give all that I have to possess it. Life is not hurrying on to a receeding future, nor hankering after an imagined past. It is the turning aside like Moses to the miracle of the lit bush, to a brightness that seemed as transitory as your youth once, but is the eternity that awaits you.”

WayGivingPastLife IsRealizingBreakSunGoneFieldsYouthEternityMiracleForgottenTreasureMy WayPearlsLitMosesBrightnessBreak ThroughTransitoryHurryingHankering
Book:R. S. Thomas: Everyman Poetry: Everyman's Poetry
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