“HURRY UP PLEASE IT'S TIMEHURRY UP PLEASE IT'S TIME”

“I learn a great deal by merely observing you, and letting you talk as long as you please, and taking note of what you do not say.”

“And indeed there will be time for the yellow smoke that slides along the street rubbing its back upon the window-panes; there will be time , there will be time to prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet; there will be time to murder and create, and time for all the works and days of hands that lift and drop a question on your plate; time for you and time for me, and time yet for a hundred indecisions, and for a hundred visions and revisions, before the taking of toast and tea.”

“The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panesThe yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panesLicked its tongue into the corners of the eveningLingered upon the pools that stand in drainsLet fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneysSlipped by the terrace, made a sudden leapAnd seeing that it was a soft October nightCurled once about the house, and fell asleep”

“Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer were a very notorious couple of cats.As knockabout clowns, quick-change comedians,Tight-rope walkers and acrobatsThey had an extensive reputation.[...]When the family assembled for Sunday dinner,With their minds made up that they wouldn’t get thinnerOn Argentine joint, potatoes and greens,And the cook would appear from behind the scenesAnd say in a voice that was broken with sorrow"I'm afraid you must wait and have dinner tomorrow!For the joint has gone from the oven like that!"Then the family would say: "It's that horrible cat!It was Mungojerrie – or Rumpleteazer!" -And most of the time they left it at that.Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer had a wonderful way of working together.And some of the time you would say it was luckAnd some of the time you would say it was weather.They would go through the house like a hurricane,And no sober person could take his oathWas it Mungojerrie – or Rumpleteazer?Or could you have sworn that it mightn't be both?And when you heard a dining room smashOr up from the pantry there came a loud crashOr down from the library came a loud pingFrom a vase which was commonly said to be MingThen the family would say: "Now which was which cat?It was Mungojerrie! And Rumpleteazer!"And there's nothing at all to be done about that!”

“It's not wise to violate the rules until you know how to observe them.”

“Our second danger is to associate tradition with the immovable; to think of it as something hostile to all change; to aim to return to some previous condition which we imagine as having been capable of preservation in perpetuity, instead of aiming to stimulate the life which produced that condition in its time. . . . a tradition without intelligence is not worth having . . .”