Dylan Thomas Quotes (41 Quotes)


    I hold a beast, an angel and a madman in me, and my enquiry is as to their working, and my problem is their subjugation and victory, downthrow and upheaval, and my effort is their self-expression.

    the land of my fathers . . . . I leave it to my fathers.


    These poems, with all their crudities, doubts, and confusions, are written for the love of Man and in praise of God, and I'd be a damn' fool if they weren't.

    I went on all over the States, ranting poems to enthusiastic audiences that, the week before, had been equally enthusiastic about lectures on Railway Development or the Modern Turkish Essay.



    Washington isn't a city, it's an abstraction.

    Do not go gentle into the good night. Old age should burn and rage at close of day.


    Wales is the land of my fathers. And my fathers can have it.

    He who seeks rest finds boredom. He who seeks work finds rest.

    Light breaks where no sun shines Where no sea runs, the waters of the heart Push in their tides.

    Though lovers be lost love shall not And death shall have no dominion.

    You can tear a poem apart to see what makes it tick... You're back with the mystery of having been moved by words. The best craftsmanship always leaves holes and gaps... so that something that is not in the poem can creep, crawl, flash or thunder in.

    An alcoholic is someone you don't like who drinks as much as you do.

    Dylan talked copiously, then stopped. 'Somebody's boring me,' he said, 'I think it's me.'


    Never be lucid, never state, if you would be regarded great.

    But time has set its maggot on their track.

    The force that through the green fuse drives the flower Drives my green age that blasts the roots of trees Is my destroyer. And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose My youth is bend by the same wintry fever.

    Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means, TIme held me green and dying Though I sang in my chains like the sea.

    An alcoholic is someone who you do not like who drinks as much as you do.

    A born writer is born scrofulous his career is an accident dictated by physical or circumstantial disabilities.

    My education was the liberty I had to read indiscriminately and all the time, with my eyes hanging out.

    Organ Morgan, you haven't been listening to a word I said. It's organ all the time with you...

    Don't be too harsh to these poems until they're typed. I always think typescript lends some sort of certainty: at least, if the things are bad then, they appear to be bad with conviction.

    When one burns one's bridges, what a very nice fire it makes.


    Great is the hand that holds dominion over man by a scribbled name.

    ... an ugly, lovely town ... crawling, sprawling ... by the side of a long and splendid curving shore. This sea-town was my world.



    There is only one position for an artist anywhere; and that is upright.

    The function of posterity is to look after itself.

    The land of my fathers. My fathers can have it.

    We can catch buses and count our change and cross the roads and talk real sentences. But our innocence goes awfully deep, and our discreditable secret is that we don't know anything at all, and our horrid inner secret is that we don't care that we don't.

    Go on thinking that you don't need to be read and you'll find that it may become quite true: no one will feel the need tom read it because it is written for yourself alone; and the public won't feel any impulse to gate crash such a private party.

    Whatever talents I possess may suddenly diminish or suddenly increase. I can with ease become an ordinary fool. I may be one now. But it doesn't do to upset one's own vanity.

    I've just had eighteen straight whiskies. I think that's the record.

    A horrid alcoholic explosion scatters all my good intentions like bits of limbs and clothes over the doorsteps and into the saloon bars of the tawdriest pubs

    Nothing grows in our garden, only washing. And babies.


    More Dylan Thomas Quotations (Based on Topics)


    Death & Dying - Love - Time - Fathers - Night - Literature - Poetry - Light - Success - Accident - Garden - Posterity - Flowers - Education - Cities - Mystery - Work & Career - Art - Thought & Thinking - View All Dylan Thomas Quotations

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