sullen quotes

You seldom find him making love in any of his scenes or endeavouring to move the passions; his genius was too sullen and saturnine to do it gracefully, especially when he knew he came after those who had performed both to such an height.

-John Dryden
  Of Ben  Jonson.  An Essay of Dramatic Poesy,'Shakespeare and Ben  Jonson Compared'.

And by his smile, I knew that sullen hall, By his dead smile I knew we stood in Hell.

-Wilfred Owen
  'Strange Meeting', collected in Poems (published1920).

Why do you lie with your legs ungainly huddled, And one arm bent across your sullen cold Exhausted face?

- Siegfried Louvain Sassoon
  'The Dug-Out'.