Like two skeletons copulating on a corrugated tin roof.

-Beecham, SirThomas
Of the harpsichord's sound. Quoted in Harold  Atkins and Archie Newman Beecham Stories (1978).

Sing on, with hymns uproarious, Ye humble and aloof, Look up! and oh, how glorious He has restored the roof!

-Betjeman, SirJohn
Mount Zion,'Hymn'.

OAutumn, laden with fruit, and stained With the blood of grape, pass not, but sit Beneath my shady roof; there thou may'st rest, And tune thy jolly voice to my fresh pipe, And all the daughters of the year shall dance! Sing now the lusty song of fruits and flowers.

-Blake,William
  Poetical Sketches,'To  Autumn'.

   The walls of spiders' legs are made, Well mortised and finely laid; He was the master of his trade It curiously builded; The windows of the eyes of cats, And for the roof, instead of slats, Is covered with the skins of bats, With moonshine that are gilded.

-Drayton, Michael
  Nymphidia, the Court of Fairy.

Thou art not, Penshurst, built to envious show Of touch or marble, nor canst boast a row Of polished pillars, or a roof of gold; Thou hast no lantern whereof tales are told, Or stair, or courts; but standst an ancient pile, And these grudged at, art reverenced the while.

-Jonson, Ben
  The Forest,'To Penshurst'.

Compromise makes a good umbrella but a poor roof.

-Lowell,James Russell
  'On Democracy', speech in Birmingham, 6 Oct.

Wenn ich gewusst h a« tte, dass so viel Teufel auf mich gezielet h a« tten, als Ziegel auf den D a« chern waren zu Worms, w a« re ich dennoch eingeritten. I would have gone into Worms though there were as many devils as tiles on the roof.

-Luther, Martin
  Letter to Frederick, Elector of Saxony, 21  Aug.

The oracles are dumb; No voice or hideous hum Runs through the arche'  d roof in words deceiving.

-Milton,John
  'On the Morning of Christ's Nativity','The Hymn', stanza19.

But let my due feet never fail To walk the studious cloister's pale, And love the high embowe'  d roof, With antic pillars massy proof, And storied windows richly dight Casting a dim religious light.

-Milton,John
c.1631 Il Penseroso, l.155^60.

La gloire et le repos sont choses qui ne peuvent loger en mesme giste. Fame and tranquillity are two things that can't live under the same roof.

-Montaigne, Michel Eyquem de
 Essais, bk.1, ch.39 (translated by Charles Cotton).

For it seems that long before the first enterprising man bent some twigs into a leaky roof, many animals were already accomplished builders.

-Rudofsky, Bernard
  Architecture without Architects.

Theartist needsbut a roof, a crust of bread, and his easel, and all therest Godgiveshim inabundance.Hemust live to paint and not paint to live.

-Ryder, Albert Pinkham
Quoted in Sherman Albert Pinkham Ryder (1920).

After weeks of watching the roof leak I fixed it tonight by moving a single board.

-Snyder, Gary Sherman
  The Back Country,'Hitch Haiku'.

We will listen to the wind's text Blown through the roof, or the thrush's song In the thick bush that proved him wrong, Wrong from the start, for nature's truth Is primary and her changing seasons Correct out of a vaster reason The vague errors of the flesh.

-Thomas, R(onald) S(tuart)
  'The Minister'.

Art is History's nostalgia, it prefers a thatched roof to a concrete factory, and the huge church above a bleached village.

-Walcott, Derek Alton
  Omeros, bk.6, ch.45, section 2.

What is the victory of a cat on a hot tin roof?öI wish I knew† Just staying on it, I guess, for as long as she can.

-Williams,TennesseeThomas Lanier
  Maggie. Cat on a HotTin Roof, act1.