Stephen Spender Quotes

There is a certain justice in criticism. The critic is like a midwife - a tyrannical midwife.

critics

But reading is not idleness...it is the passive, receptive side of civilization without which the active and creative world would be meaningless.

reading

Being a minor poet is like being minor royalty.  And no one, as a former lady-in-waiting to Princess Margaret once explained to me, is happy as that.

poets