The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations Preface

Beats like a fatalistic drum,
And through the spaces of the dark
Midnight shakes the memory
As a madman shakes a dead geranium.
‘Rhapsody on a Windy Night’ (1917)
Where is the Life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
‘The Rock’ (1934) pt. 1
And the wind shall say: ‘Here were decent godless people:
Their only monument the asphalt road
And a thousand lost golf balls.’
‘The Rock’ (1934) pt. 1
Birth, and copulation, and death.
That’s all the facts when you come to brass tacks:
Birth, and copulation, and death.
I’ve been born, and once is enough.
‘Sweeney Agonistes’ (1932) ‘Fragment of an Agon’
Any man has to, needs to, wants to
Once in a lifetime, do a girl in.
‘Sweeney Agonistes’ (1932) ‘Fragment of an Agon’
I gotta use words when I talk to you.
‘Sweeney Agonistes’ (1932) ‘Fragment of an Agon’
The host with someone indistinct
Converses at the door apart,
The nightingales are singing near
The Convent of the Sacred Heart,
And sang within the bloody wood
When Agamemnon cried aloud
And let their liquid siftings fall
To stain the stiff dishonoured shroud.
‘Sweeney among the Nightingales’ (1919)
April is the cruellest 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
A little life with dried tubers.
‘The Waste Land’ (1922) pt. 1