Edna St. Vincent Millay

Quotes

• “When this book is mould,And a book of manyWaiting to be soldFor a casual penny,In a little open case,In a street unclean...”
• “I turn away reluctant from your light,And stand irresolute, a mind undone,A silly, dazzled thing deprived of sightFrom h...”
• “Strong sun, that bleachThe curtains of my room, can you not renderColourless this dress I wear?—This violent plaidOf pur...”
• “Still must the poet as of old,In barren attic bleak and cold,Starve, freeze, and fashion verses toSuch things as flowers...”
• “The mind, at length bereftOf thinking and its pain,Will soon disperse again,And nothing will remain:No, not a thing be l...”
• “The first rose on my rose-tree Budded, bloomed, and shattered, During sad days when to me Nothing mattered. Grief of g...”
• “Degraded bird, I give you back your eyes forever, ascend now whither you are tossed;Forsake this wrist, forsake this rhy...”
• “Oh, friend, forget not, when you fain would noteIn me a beauty that was never mine,How first you knew me in a book I wro...”
• “Sorrow like a ceaseless rainBeats upon my heart.People twist and scream in pain,—Dawn will find them still again;This ha...”
• “Where you used to be there is a hole in the world which I find myself constantly walking around in the daytime and fa...”
• “Childhood is not from birth to a certain age and at a certain age. The child is grown, and puts away childish things. Ch...”
• “My heart is warm with the friends I make And better friends I'll not be knowing Yet there isn't a train I wouldn't tak...”
• “Searching my heart for its true sorrow, This is the thing I find to be: That I am weary of words and people, Sick of the...”
• “The sky, I thought, is not so grand;I 'most could touch it with my hand!And reaching up my hand to try,I screamed to fee...”
• “Am I kin to Sorrow,That so oftFalls the knocker of my door—Neither loud nor soft,But as long accustomed—Under Sorrow’s h...”
• “My candle burns at both ends It will not last the night But ah my foes and oh my friends - It gives a lovely lig...”
• “Lost in Hell,-Persephone,Take her head upon your knee;Say to her, "My dear, my dear,It is not so dreadful here.”
• “After all my erstwhile dear my no longer cherished need we say it was no love just because it perished?”
• “And if I loved you Wednesday well what is that to you? I do not love you Thursday - so much is true.”
• “I will be the gladdest thing under the sun! I will touch a hundred flowers and not pick one.”
• “It is not true that life is one damn thing after another- it's one damn thing over and over.”
• “I do not think there is a woman in whom the roots of passion shoot deeper than in me.”
• “A person who publishes a book appears willfully in public eye with his pants down.”
• “Please give me some good advice in your next letter. I promise not to follow it.”
• “You see, I am a poet, and not quite right in the head, darling. It’s only that.”
• “A person who publishes a book appears willfully in public with his pants down.”
• “With him for a sire and her for a dam What should I be but just what I am?”
• “Strange how few After all's said and done the things that are Of moment.”
• “And so beneath the weight lay IAnd suffered death, but could not die.”
• “And all the loveliest things there be Come simply so it seems to me.”
• “Tis not love's going hurts my days but that it went in little ways.”
• “God, I can push the grass apart and lay my finger on Thy heart.”
• “Catch from the board of beauty/ Such careless crumbs as fall.”
• “I would I were alive again to kiss the fingers of the rain.”
• “April Comes like an idiot babbling and strewing flowers.”
• “I shall die, but that is all that I shall do for Death.”
• “I love humanity but I hate people.”
• “Beauty is whatever gives joy.”