A pharaoh's profile, a Krishna's grace, tail like a question mark. Louis MacNeice More Quotes by Louis MacNeice More Quotes From Louis MacNeice I am not yet born; O fill me Louis MacNeice cogshumanityprayer All that I would like to be is human, having a share Louis MacNeice communitybodymind In my own prejudice.. I would have of a poet...whose worlds would not be too esoteric..fond of talking....capable of pity and laughter..appreciative of womem..involved in personal relationships...susceptible to physical impressions Louis MacNeice laughterprejudicetalking Let them not make me a stone and let them not spill me, otherwise kill me. Louis MacNeice kill-mekillingstones Down the road someone is practicing scales, Louis MacNeice musicsoundtails A city built upon mud; Louis MacNeice budcitiesculture Up the Rebels, To Hell with the Pope, Louis MacNeice landeyekings I am not yet born; O hear me. Louis MacNeice ghoulsprayerfear And I envy the intransigence of my own Louis MacNeice envykillingfaces Today I am so at home in Dublin, more than in any other city, that I feel it has always been familiar to me. But, as with Belfast it took me years to penetrate its outer ugliness and dourness, so with Dublin it took me years to see through its soft charm to its bitter prickly kernel - which I quite like too. Louis MacNeice citieshomeyears The teapot takes in water and gives out tea. So the human individual takes in anything you give him and promptly transforms it; he is ready to give you out again his own reactions - first, in thought and emotion, then in voice or action. Louis MacNeice youvoiceteawater A harrassed and dubious childhood under the hand of a well-meaning but barbarous mother's help from County Armagh led me to think of the North of Ireland as prison and the South as a land of escape. Louis MacNeice thinkmechildhoodmother Broadcasting is plastic; while it can ape the press, it can also emulate the arts. Louis MacNeice pressalsoplasticbroadcasting Dublin was hardly worried by the war; her old preoccupations were still preoccupations. The intelligentsia continued their parties; their mutual malice was as effervescent as ever. Louis MacNeice heroldstillwar For this reason poets and artists developed the doctrine of Art for Art's Sake. The community did not appear to need them, so, tit for tat, they did not need the community. This being granted, it was no longer necessary or even desirable to make one's poetry either intelligible or sympathetic to the community. Louis MacNeice needcommunitypoetryart Style without content is bad style. Louis MacNeice contentwithoutbadstyle The rules or 'laws' of poetry are only tentative devices, an approximate scheme. There is no Sinaitic recipe for poetry, for the individual poem is the norm. Louis MacNeice rulesonlyindividualpoetry Democracy - or any improvement on it - will rest on the layman's right to criticize. His criticism will be often - very often - damn silly, but if, like Plato and the Fascists, we take away his right to criticize, we take away his right to appreciate. Louis MacNeice restappreciatedemocracyimprovement In writing 'A Portrait of Athens' I have attempted - rather impressionistically - to give a panorama of its present. But I have also brought in its past because I sincerely think that there is a continuity. Louis MacNeice portraitthinkwritingpast In January 1921, I found myself wonderfully alone in an empty carriage in a rocking train in the night between Waterloo and Sherborne. Stars on each side of me; I ran from side to side of the carriage, checking the constellations. Louis MacNeice alonemyselfmestars
