But you, oh gardener, poet that you be / Though unaware, now use your seeds like words / And make them lilt with color nicely flung.
Vita Sackville-WestThere is something intrinsically wrong about letters. For one thing they are not instantaneous. ... Nor is this the only trouble about letters. They do not arrive often enough. A letter which has been passionately awaited should be immediately supplemented by another one, to counteract the feeling of flatness that comes upon us when the agonizing delights of anticipation have been replaced by the colder flood of fulfilment.
Vita Sackville-WestSee the last orange roses, how they blow / Deeper and heavier than in their prime, / In one defiant flame before they go.
Vita Sackville-WestI like owls. I admire their intransigent spirit. I have respected them deeply ever since I met a baby owl in a wood, when it fell over dead, apparently from sheer temper, because I dared to approach it. It defied me first, and then died. I have never forgotten the horror and shame I experienced when that soft fluffy thing (towards which I had nothing but the most humanitarian motives) fell dead from rage at my feet.
Vita Sackville-West