Edna St. Vincent Millay quotes:

My candle burns at both ends; it will not last the night; but ah, my foes, and oh, my friends - it gives a lovely light!

The longest absence is less perilous to love than the terrible trials of incessant proximity.

Where you used to be, there is a hole in the world, which I find myself constantly walking around in the daytime, and falling in at night. I miss you like hell.

Parrots, tortoises and redwoods live a longer life than men do; Men a longer life than dogs do; Dogs a longer life than love does.

The soul can split the sky in two and let the face of God shine through.

Please give me some good advice in your next letter. I promise not to follow it.

Childhood Is the Kingdom Where Nobody Dies.

Euclid Alone Has Looked on Beauty Bare.

I am glad that I paid so little attention to good advice; had I abided by it I might have been saved from some of my most valuable mistakes.

Her lawn looks like a meadow, And if she mows the place She leaves the clover standing And the Queen Anne's Lace.

The fabric of my faithful love No power shall dim or ravel Whilst I stay here - but oh, my dear, If I should ever travel!

God, I can push the grass apart and lay my finger on Thy heart.

What the customer demands is last year's model, cheaper. To find out what the customer needs you have to understand what the customer is doing as well as he understands it. Then you build what he needs and you educate him to the fact that he needs it.

I know I am but summer to your heart, and not the full four seasons of the year.

Parrots, tortoises and redwoods live a longer life than men do; Men a longer life than dogs do; Dogs a longer life than love does."

Euclid alone Has looked on Beauty bare. Fortunate they Who, though once only and then but far away, Have heard her massive sandal set on stone.

It's not true that life is one damn thing after another; it's one damn thing over and over.

Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies. Nobody that matters, that is.

The Englishman foxtrots as he fox-hunts, with all his being, through thickets, through ditches, over hedges, through chiffons, through waiters, over saxophones, to the victorious finish; and who goes home depends on how many the ambulance will accommodate.

How strange a thing is death, bringing to his knees, bringing to his antlers The buck in the snow . . . Life, looking out attentive from the eyes of the doe.

Oh, children, growing up to be Adventurers into sophistry, Forbear, forbear to be of those That read the rood to learn the rose.

I will be the gladdest thing under the sun! I will touch a hundred flowers and not pick one.

Pity me that the heart is slow to learnWhat the swift mind beholds at every turn.

I am not at all in favor of hard work for its own sake; many people who work very hard indeed produce terrible things, and should most certainly not be encouraged.

The younger generation forms a country of its own. It has no geographical boundaries. I've talked with young Hungarians in Budapest, with young Italians in Rome, with young Frenchmen in Paris, and with young people all over. ... These young people are going to do things. They are going to change things.

Childhood is not from birth to a certain age and at a certain age. The child is grown, and puts away childish things. Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies.

The young are so old, they are born with their fingers crossed.

Beautiful as a dandelion-blossom golden in the green grass, this life can be.

Beautiful as a dandelion-blossom, golden in the green grass, This life can be. Common as a dandelion-blossom, beautiful in the clean grass, not beautiful Because common, beautiful because beautiful, Noble because common, because free.

Marriageone of the most civilized institutions in the worldButswimming is one of the most wonderful of sports, and yet there are always some people who cannot swim who insist on going into the water and getting drowned. Many people spoil marriage in a like manner. One should be sure she knows how to be married before rushing into it.

I love humanity but I hate people.

It's not love's going hurts my days But that it went in little ways.

I hate people but I love gatherings.

They say when you are missing someone that they are probably feeling the same, but I don't think it's possible for you to miss me as much as I'm missing you right now

Upon this gifted age, in its dark hour falls from the sky a meteoric shower of facts; They lie unquestioned, uncombined. Wisdom enough to leech us of our ill is daily spun, But there exists no loom to weave it into fabric.

Thus in the winter stands the lonely tree, Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one, Yet knows its boughs more silent than before

Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain; Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink.

Love is not all; it is not meat nor drink.

I am all the time talking about you, and bragging, to one person or another. I am like the Ancient Mariner, who had a tale in his heart he must unfold to all. I am always buttonholing somebody and saying, "Someday you must meet my mother."

[on going to Sunday school:] It looks like rain, and I hope it will rain cats and dogs and hammers and pitchforks and silver sugar spoons and hay ricks and paper-covered novels and picture frames and rag carpets and toothpicks and skating rinks and birds of paradise and roof gardens and burdocks and French grammars before Sunday school time.

We are all ruled in what we do by impulses; and these impulses are so organized that our actions in general serve for our self preservation and that of the race.

it may be said of me by Harper & Brothers, that although I reject their proposals, I welcome their advances.

There are a hundred places where I fear To go, --so with his memory they brim! And entering with relief some quiet place Where never fell his foot or shone his face I say, 'There is no memory of him here!' And so stand stricken, so remembering him!

Let us not forget such words, and all they mean, as hatred, bitterness, and rancor greed, intolerance, bigotry; let us renew our faith and pledge to man, his right to be himself and free.

Man has never been the same since God died.

After all my erstwhile dear, my no longer cherished; Need we say it was not love, just because it perished?

Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely.

No one but Night, with tears on her dark face, watches beside me in this windy place.

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 city, wanting the sea.

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 take,No matter where it's going.

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 feel it touch the sky.

Music, my rampart and my only one.

When you are corn and roses and at rest I shall endure, a dense and sanguine ghost To haunt the scene where I was happiest To bend above the thing I loved the most

Life isn't all beer and skittles; few of us have touched a skittle in years.

Soar, eat ether, see what has never been seen; depart, be lost, but climb.

Music my rampart, and my only one.

Not poppy, nor mandrake, Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world, Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep, Which thou owest yesterday.

If I love you Wednesday, What is that to you? I do not love you Thursday - so much is true.

There isn't a train I wouldn't take, no matter where it's going.

A person who publishes a book willfully appears before the populace with his pants down. If it is a good book nothing can hurt him. If it is a bad book nothing can help him.

Set the foot down with distrust on the crust of the world - it is thin.

Not truth, but faith, it is that keeps the world alive.

Ah! Up then from the ground sprang I And hailed the earth with such a cry As is not heard save from a man Who has been dead, and lives again. About the trees my arms I wound; Like one gone mad I hugged the ground; I raised my quivering arms on high; I laughed and laughed into the sky...

I, being born a woman and distressed By all the needs and notions of my kind...

Stranger, pause and look; From the dust of ages Lift this little book, Turn the tattered pages, Read me, do not let me die! Search the fading letters finding Steadfast in the broken binding All that once was I!

Beauty never slumbers; All is in her name; But the rose remembers The dust from which it came.

You are loved. If so, what else matters?

Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind; Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave. I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.

There is no shelter in you anywhere.

This book, when I am dead, will be A little faint perfume of me. People who knew me well will say, She really used to think that way.

Now the autumn shudders In the rose's root. Far and wide the ladders Lean among the fruit. Now the autumn clambers Up the trellised frame, And the rose remembers The dust from which it came. Brighter than the blossom On the rose's bough Sits the wizened orange, Bitter berry now; Beauty never slumbers; All is in her name; But the rose remembers The dust from which it came.

Beauty in all things-no, we cannot hope for that; but some place set apart for it.

To a Young Poet Time cannot break the bird's wing from the bird. Bird and wing together Go down, one feather. No thing that ever flew, Not the lark, not you, Can die as others do.

And reaching up my hand to try, I screamed to feel it touch the sky.

When I can make Of ten small words a rope to hang the world! "I had you and I have you now no more.

She learned her hands in a fairy-tale, And her mouth on a valentine.

Spring TO what purpose, April, do you return again? Beauty is not enough. You can no longer quiet me with the redness Of little leaves opening stickily. I know what I know. The sun is hot on my neck as I observe The spikes of the crocus. The smell of the earth is good. It is apparent that there is no death. But what does that signify? Not only under ground are the brains of men Eaten by maggots. Life in itself Is nothing, An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs. It is not enough that yearly, down this hill, April Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.

Night falls fast. Today is in the past.

Not for the flag Of any land because myself was born there Will I give up my life. But I will love that land where man is free, And that will I defend.

Cut if you will with sleep's dull knife, the years from off your life, my friend! the years that death takes off my life, he'll take from off the other end!

Ah, drink again This river that is the taker-away of pain, And the giver-back of beauty! In these cool waves What can be lost?-- Only the sorry cost Of the lovely thing, ah, never the thing itself! The level flood that laves The hot brow And the stiff shoulder Is at our temples now. Gone is the fever, But not into the river; Melted the frozen pride, But the tranquil tide Runs never the warmer for this, Never the colder. Immerse the dream. Drench the kiss. Dip the song in the stream.

Life in itself / Is nothing, / An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs. / It is not enough that yearly, down this hill, / April / Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.

I screamed, and--lo!--Infinity Came down and settled over me

If I could have two things in one: the peace of the grave, and the light of the sun.

I, being born a woman and distressed By all the needs and notions of my kind, Am urged by your propinquity to find Your person fair, and feel a certain zest To bear your body's weight upon my breast; So subtly is the fume of life designed, To clarify the pulse and cloud the mind, And leave me once again undone, possessed. Think not for this, however, the poor treason Of my stout blood against my staggering brain, I shall remember you with love, or season My scorn with pity, - let me make it plain: I find this frenzy insufficient reason For conversation when we meet again.

And must I then, indeed, Pain, live with you all through my life?-sharing my fire, my bed, Sharing-oh, worst of all things!-the same head?- And, when I feed myself, feeding you too?

Without music I should wish to die.

The world stands out on either side, No wider than the heart is wide.

Sorrow like a ceaseless rain Beats upon my heart. People twist and scream in pain-- Dawn will find them still again; This has neither wax nor wane, Neither stop nor start.

And all the loveliest things there be come simply, so it seems to me.

Not Truth, but Faith it is that keeps the world alive.

What terrible fear causes Man to address the Void as Thou?

Earth does not understand her child, Who from the loud gregarious town Returns, depleted and defiled, To the still woods, to fling him down.

Life must go on; I forget just why.

A ghost in marble of a girl you knew Who would have loved you in a day or two.

Lord I do fear / Thou'st made the world too beautiful this year.

April comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.

Safe upon the solid rock the ugly houses stand. Come and see my shining palace built upon the sand!

Pour away despair and rinse the cup. Eat happiness like bread.

O world, I cannot hold thee close enough!

What should I be but just what I am?

Life in itself Is nothing, An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs.

I have loved badly, loved the great Too soon, withdrawn my words too late; And eaten in an echoing hall Alone and from a chipped plate The words that I withdrew too late.

Heap not on this mound roses that she loved so well; why bewilder her with roses that she cannot see or smell.

If ever I said in grief or pride, I'd tired of honest things, I lied.

It's little I know what's in my heart,What's in my mind it's little I know,But there's that in me must up and start,And it's little I care where my feet go.

[L]ife isn't one thing after another, it's the same thing over and over

I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.

l am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground. So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind: Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.

Should at that moment the full moon Step forth upon the hill, And memories hard to bear at noon, By moonlight harder still, Form in the shadows of the trees,-- Things that you could not spare And live, or so you thought, yet these All gone, and you still there, A man no longer what he was, Not yet the thing he planned...

I make bean stalks, I'm A builder, like yourself.

I only know that summer sang in me A little while, that in me sings no more.

Time can make soft that iron wood.

I drank at every vine, the last was like the first. I came upon no wine so wonderful as thirst.

You wrote me a beautiful letter, I wonder if you meant it to be as beautiful as it was. I think you did; for somehow I know that your feeling for me, however slight it is, is of the nature of love... When you tell me to come, I will come, by the next train, just as I am. This is not meekness, be assured; I do not come naturally by meekness; know that it is a proud surrender to You.

I had a little sorrow, Born of a little sin.