“Your soul: pure glucose edged with hintsOf tentative and half-soiled tints”

“Solo For Ear-Trumpet The carriage brushes through the brightLeaves (violent jets from life to light);Strong polished speed is plunging, heavesBetween the showers of bright hot leavesThe window-glasses glaze our facesAnd jar them to the very basis — But they could never put a polishUpon my manners or abolishMy most distinct disinclinationFor calling on a rich relation!In her house — (bulwark built betweenThe life man lives and visions seen) — The sunlight hiccups white as chalk,Grown drunk with emptiness of talk,And silence hisses like a snake — Invertebrate and rattling ache….Then suddenly EternityDrowns all the houses like a seaAnd down the street the Trump of DoomBlares madly — shakes the drawing-roomWhere raw-edged shadows sting forlornAs dank dark nettles. Down the hornOf her ear-trumpet I conveyThe news that 'It is Judgment Day!''Speak louder: I don't catch, my dear.'I roared: 'It is the Trump we hear!''The What?' 'THE TRUMP!' 'I shall complain!…. the boy-scouts practising again.”

“All day long you sit and sew,Stitch life down for fear it grow,Stitch life down for fear we guessAt the hidden ugliness.Dusty voice that throbs with heat,Hoping with your steel-thin beatTo put stitches in my mind,Make it tidy, make it kind,You shall not: I'll keep it freeThough you turn earth, sky and seaTo a patchwork quilt to keepYour mind snug and warm in sleep!”

“I have often wished I had time to cultivate modesty...But I am too busy thinking about myself.”

“I wish the government would put a tax on pianos for the incompetent.”

“My personal hobbies are reading, listening to music, and silence.”

“I am patient with stupidity, but not with those who are proud of it.”