Osbert Sitwell quotes:

Blood is that fragile scarlet tree we carry within us.

The Rich Man's Banquet, which was to last for a decade, had now begun: the feast, it was recognised, went to the greediest.

Heroic figures are now obsolete,So Demigod and Devil find retreatIn minds of children - as rare beasts and men,Elsewhere extinct, persist in hill or fenFrom man protected - where each form assumesGigantic stature and intention, loomsFrom wind-moved, twilight-woven histories:For them each flower teems with mysteries.

The artist, like the idiot or clown, sits on the edge of the world, and a push may send him over it.

My education [takes place] during the holidays from Eton.

In reality, killing time is only the name for another of the multifarious ways by which Time kills us.

The terrible newly imported American doctrine that everyone ought to do something.

Hell has a climate, but no situation. It lies in the spirit, and not in space.

How simple-minded of the Germans to imagine that we British could be cowed by the destruction of our ancient monuments! As though any havoc of the German bombs could possibly equal the things we have done ourselves!

A golf course outside a big town serves an excellent purpose in that it segregates, as though a concentration camp, all the idle and idiot well-to-do.

For Poetry is the wisdom of the blood,That scarlet tree within, which has the powerTo make dull words bud forth and burst in flower.

The only difference between an artist and a lunatic is, perhaps, that the artist has the restraint or courtesy to conceal the intensity of his obsession from all except those similarly afflicted.

It is fatal to be appreciated in one's own time.

For forty days he went out into the desert - and never shot anything [on Jesus]

We attended stables, as we attended church, in our best clothes, thereby no doubt showing the degree of respect due to horses.

Everywhere men have unlocked the prisoners within, and from under the disguising skins the apes have leapt joyfully out.

I have always said that if I were a rich man, I would employ a professional praiser.

Poetry is like fish: if it's fresh, it's good; if it's stale, it's bad; and if you're not certain, try it on the cat.