Edna St. Vincent Millay Quotes

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.

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?

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why, I have forgotten, and what arms have lain Under my head till morning, but the rain Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh Upon the glass and listen for reply, And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain For unremembered lads that not again Will turn to me at midnight with a cry. 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: I cannot say what loves have come and gone, I only know that summer sang in me A little while, that in me sings no more.

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.

Catch from the board of beauty/ Such careless crumbs as fall.

All my life, Following Care along the dusty road, Have I looked back on loveliness and sighed.

A person who publishes a book appears willfully in public eye with his pants down.

Cruel of heart, lay down my song. Your reading eyes have done me wrong. Not for you was the pen bitten, And the mind wrung, and the song written.

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

April comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.

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.

I am not a tentative person. Whatever I do, I give up my whole self to it.

I do not think there is a woman in whom the roots of passion shoot deeper than in me.

Although we sometimes did without a few of life's necessities, we rarely lacked for its luxuries.

Time can make soft that iron wood.

I love humanity but I hate people.

I know, but I do not approve. And I am not resigned.

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

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

Life has no friend.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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?

We were so wholly one I had not thought That we could die apart. I had not thought That I could move,—and you be stiff and still! That I could speak,—and you perforce be dumb! I think our heart-strings were, like warp and woof In some firm fabric, woven in and out; Your golden filaments in fair design Across my duller fibre.

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.

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

The first rose on my rose-tree Budded, bloomed, and shattered, During sad days when to me Nothing mattered. Grief or grief has drained me clean; Still it seems a pity No one saw,—it must have been Very pretty.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Oh, you mean I'm a homosexual! Of course I am, and heterosexual too, but what's that got to do with my headache?

Here's a song was never sung: Growing old is dying young.

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

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

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.

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

After the feet of beauty fly my own.

Summer set lip to earth's bosom bare, And left the flushed print in a poppy there. I will touch a hundred flowers And not pick one.

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!

You see, I am a poet, and not quite right in the head, darling. It’s only that.

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.

I am waylaid by beauty.