Quotes by W. N. P. Barbellion

“To forget the past so easily seems scarcely loyal to oneself. I am so selfishly absorbed in my present self that I have grown not to care a damn about that ever increasing collection of past selves- those dear, dead gentlemen who one after the other have tenanted the temple of this flesh and handed on the torch of my life and personal identity before creeping away silently and modestly to rest.””

“My darling sweetheart, you ask me why I love you. I do not know. All I know is that I do love you, and beyond measure. Why do you love me? Surely a more inscrutable problem? You do not know. No one ever knows. ‘The heart has its reasons which the reason knows not of.’ We love in obedience to a powerful gravitation of our beings, and then try to explain it by recapitulating one another’s character just as a man forms his opinions first and then thinks out reasons in support.What delights me is to recall that our love has evolved. It did not suddenly spring into existence like some beautiful sprite. It developed slowly to perfection. It was forged in the white heat of our experiences. That is why it will always remain.””

“Sometimes I think I am going mad. I live for days in the mystery and tears of things so that the commonest object, the most familiar face- even my own- become ghostly, unreal, enigmatic. I get into an attitude of almost total scepticism, nescience, solipsism, in a world of dumb, sphinx-like things that cannot explain themselves. The discovery of how I am situated- a sentient being on a globe in space overshadows me. I wish I were just nothing.””

“The porter spends his days in the Library keeping strict vigil over this catacomb of books, passing along between the shelves and yet never paying heed to the almost audible susurrus of desire- the desire every book has to be taken down and read, to live, to come into being in somebody's mind. He even hands the volumes over the counter, seeks them out in their proper places or returns them there without once realising that a Book is a Person and not a Thing.””

“Civilisation and top hats bore me.””

“When I feel ill, cinema pictures of the circumstances of my death flit across my mind's eye. I cannot prevent them. I consider the nature of the disease and all I said before I died- something heroic, of course!””

“Suffering does not only insulate. It drops its victim in an ocean desert where he sees men as distant ships passing. I not only feel alone, but very far away from you all.””

“As for me, I am proud of my close kinship with other animals. I take a jealous pride in my Simian ancestry. I like to think that I was once a magnificent hairy fellow living in the trees and that my frame has come down through geological time via sea jelly and worms and Amphioxus, Fish, Dinosaurs, and Apes. Who would exchange these for the pallid couple in the Garden of Eden?””

“It is best for a man to try to be both poet and naturalist”

“Let all the powers of the world and the Devil attack me, yet I will win in the end”

“me parece honor suficiente pertenecer al universo; a un universo tan grande, a un sistema tan grandioso. Ni siquiera la Muerte puede despojarme de semejante honor. Porque nada puede alterar el hecho de que he vivido; yo he sido yo, aunque fuera por poco tiempo. Y cuando esté muerto, la materia que compone mi cuerpo será indestructible –y eterna, suceda lo que suceda con mi «alma»–, mi polvo siempre estará aquí, cada átomo mío tendrá su papel independiente, todavía tendré vela en ese entierro. Cuando esté muerto, podréis hervirme, quemarme, tirarme al agua, esparcirme, pero no podréis destruirme: mis atomitos se burlarían de semejante venganza. La muerte sólo puede matarnos.””

“...poverty proved greater than vanity...””

“It is jolly to be regarded as a wicked, libidinous youth by an aged maiden Aunt.””

“When the sun grew too hot we went into the wood where waves of Bluebells dashed around the foot of the Oak in front of us... I never knew before, the delight of offering oneself up; I even longed for some self sacrifice, to have to give up something for her sake. It intoxicated me to think I was making another happy...””