Quotations on Absense

A house can be haunted by those who were never there
If there was where they were missed.
- Louis MacNeice (1907 - 1963), Irish-born British poet.
Selected Poems of Louis MacNeice, "Selva Oscura"

Absence is to love what wind is to fire; it extinguishes the small, it inflames the great.
- Bussy-Rabutin (1618 - 1693), French soldier and writer.
Histoire Amoureuse des Gaules

Absence makes the heart grow fonder,
Isle of Beauty, Fare thee well!
- Thomas Haynes Bayly (1797 - 1839), British writer.
Songs, Ballads, and Other Poems, "Isle of Beauty"

And in hotels at night passing from door to door
There is something terrible in all those empty shoes.
- Louis MacNeice (1907 - 1963), Irish-born British poet.
The Collected Poems of Louis MacNeice, "Postscript to Iceland"

He is not here; but far away
The noise of life begins again,
And ghastly thro' the drizzling rain
On the bald street breaks the blank day.
- Alfred Tennyson (1809 - 1892), British poet.
In Memoriam A. H. H.

I lie and imagine the lights going on in the harbour
Of white-housed Náousa, your clear definition at night,
And wish you were here to upstage my disconsolate labour
As I glance through a few thin pages and switch off the light.
- Derek Mahon, Irish poet.
Antartica, "Achill"

I thought I told you to wait in the car.
- Attributed to Tallulah Bankhead (1903 - 1968), U.S. actor.When greeted by a former admirer after many years.

The absence which you glory,
Is that which makes you sorry,
And burn in vain:
For thought is not the weapon,
Wherewith thought's ease men cheapen,
Absence is pain.
- Fulke Greville (1554 - 1628), English courtier and poet.
Caelica, "Caelica"

What's become of Waring
Since he gave us all the slip?
- Robert Browning (1812 - 1889), British poet.
"Waring"