April is the cruelest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land, mixing memory and desire, stirring dull roots with spring rain.

— T.S. Eliot

April is the cruelest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots with spring rain. Winter kept us warm, covering Earth in forgetful snow, feeding little life with dried tubers. Summer surprised us, coming over the StarnbergerseeWith a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade, And went on in sunlight, into the Hogarth, And drank coffee, and talked for an hour. Bin gar Kane Russian, stamp' AUS LITEN, echo Deutsche. And when we were children, staying at the arch-duke's, My cousin's, he took me out on a sled, And I was frightened. He said, Marie, Marie, hold on tight. And down we went. In the mountains, there you feel free. I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.

— T.S. Eliot

A prose that is altogether alive demands something of the reader that the ordinary novel reader is not prepared to give.

— T.S. Eliot

As she laughed I was aware of becoming involved in her laughter and being part of it, until her teeth were only accidental stars with a talent for squad-drill.

— T.S. Eliot

Before a Cat will condescend To treat you as a trusted friend, Some little token of esteems needed, like a dish of cream;And you might now and then supply Some caviar, or Strasbourg Pie, Some potted grouse, or salmon paste —He's sure to have his personal taste.(I know a Cat, who makes a habit Of eating nothing else but rabbit, And when he's finished, licks his paws So's not to waste the onion sauce.) A Cat's entitled to expect These evidences of respect. And so in time you reach your aim, And finally call him by his name.

— T.S. Eliot

Believe me, Michael:Those who flee from the past will always lose the race. I know this from experience. When you reach your goal, Your imagined paradise of success and grandeur, You will find your past failures waiting there to greet you.

— T.S. Eliot

Between the desire And the spasm, Between the potency And the existence, Between the essence And the descent, Falls the Shadow.

— T.S. Eliot

But above and beyond there's still one name left over, And that is the name that you never will guess;The name that no human research can discover--But the cat himself knows, and will never confess. When you notice a cat in profound meditation, The reason, I tell you, is always the same:His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name:His ineffable effableEffanineffableDeep and inscrutable singular Name.

— T.S. Eliot

But the Church cannot be, in any political sense, either conservative or liberal, or revolutionary. Conservatism is too often conservation of the wrong things: liberalism a relaxation of discipline; revolution a denial of the permanent things.

— T.S. Eliot

Customer Jones is not skin and bones — In fact, he's remarkably fat. He doesn't haunt pubs — he has eight or nine clubs, For he's the St. James's Street Cat! He's the Cat we all greet as he walks down the street In his coat of fastidious black:No commonplace mousers have such well-cut trousers Or such an impeccable back. In the whole of St. James's the smartest of names is The name of this Brummell of Cats;And we're all of us proud to be nodded or bowed Toby Customer Jones in white spats!

— T.S. Eliot