I do not choose the right word, I get rid of the wrong one.

- A. E. Housman

That is the land of lost content, I see it shining plain, the happy highways where I went and cannot come again.

- A. E. Housman

I, a stranger and afraid, in a world I never made.

- A. E. Housman

I am not a pessimist but a pejorist (as George Eliot said she was not an optimist but a meliorist); and that philosophy is founded on my observation …

- A. E. Housman

They say my verse is sad: no wonder; Its narrow measure spans Tears of eternity, and sorrow, Not mine. but man's.

- A. E. Housman

Poetry is not the thing said, but the way of saying it.

- A. E. Housman

Now hollow fires burn out to black, And lights are guttering low: Square your shoulders, lift your pack And leave your friends and go.

- A. E. Housman

Into my hear an air that kills through yon far country blows what are those blue remembered hills what spires,what farms are those? that is the land …

- A. E. Housman

They carry back bright to the coiner the mintage of man,The lads that will die in their glory and never be old.

- A. E. Housman