Edna St. Vincent Millay Quotes

I will come back to you, I swear I will; And you will know me still. I shall be only a little taller Than when I went.

I saw and heard, and knew at last The How and Why of all things, past, and present, and forevermore.

Youth, have no pity; leave no farthing here For age to invest in compromise and fear.

Life isn't one thing after another, it's the same thing over and over.

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

I know what my heart is like Since your love died: It is like a hollow ledge Holding a little pool Left there by the tide, A little tepid pool, Drying inward from the edge.

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.

Death devours all lovely things.

The heart grows weary after a little Of what it loved for a little while.

Need we say it was not love, Now that love is perished?

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

And her voice is a string of colored beads, Or steps leading into the sea.

Lord, I do fear Thou'st made the world too beautiful this year My soul is all but out of me-let fall No burning leaf; prithee, let no bird call.

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

But you were something more than young and sweet And fair, - and the long year remembers you.

O troubled forms, O early love unfortunate and hard, Time has estranged you into a jewel cold and pure

Life must go on, Though good men die.

Blessed be Death, that cuts in marble What would have sunk to dust!

I am not afraid of lawyers as I used to be. They are lambs in wolves' clothing.

A grave is such a quiet place.

He that would eat of love must eat it where it hangs.

Longing alone is singer to the lute.

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

After the feet of beauty fly my own.

Father, I beg of Thee a little task To dignify my days, 'tis all I ask.

Guess I'll weep awhile. Guess I won't, I mean.

Strange how few, After alls said and done, the things that are Of moment.

Life goes on forever like the gnawing of a mouse.

Sweet love, sweet thorn, when lightly to my heart. I took your thrust, whereby I since am slain, And I lie disheveled in the grass apart, A sodden thing bedrenched by tears and rain.

The only people I really hate are servants. They're not really human beings at all.

My candle burns at both ends

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

To be grown up is to sit at the table with people who have died, who neither listen nor speak.

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

Evil alone has oil for every wheel.

Progress-progress is the dirtiest word in the language-who ever told us- And made us believe it-that to take a step forward was necessarily, was always A good idea?

Martyred many times must be Who would keep his country free.

Dust in an urn long since, dispersed and dead Is great Apollo; and the happier he

On and on eternally Shall your altered fluid run, Bud and bloom and go to seed; But your singing days are done

Death devours all lovely things; Lesbia with her sparrow Shares the darkness--presently Every bed is narrow.

Tiresome heart, forever living and dying, House without air, I leave you and lock your door. Wild swans, come over the town, come over The town again, trailing your legs and crying!

When you publish something, it is very much as if you pulled your pants down in public. If what you have written is good, nobody can hurt you; if what you have written is bad, nobody can help you.

That is my being, the madness of an unaccustomed mood.

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

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

One things there's no getting by, I've been a wicked girl, Says I... But, if I can't be sorry I might as well be glad !

But she was not made for any man, and she will never be all mine.

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

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

Time can make soft that iron wood.