Edna St. Vincent Millay Quotes

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

Ah, I could lay me down in this long grass And close my eyes, and let the quiet wind Blow over me

[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.

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.

That which has quelled me, lives with me, Accomplice in catastrophe.

This have I known always: Love is no more than the wide blossom which the wind assails, than the great tide that treads the shifting shore, strewing fresh wreckage gathered in the gales; Pity me that the heart is slow to learn, that the swift mind beholds at every turn.

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.

Evil alone has oil for every wheel.

I find that I never lose Bach. I don't know why I have always loved him so. Except that he is so pure, so relentless and incorruptible, like a principle of geometry.

SHE is neither pink nor pale, And she never will be all mine; She learned her hands in a fairy-tale, And her mouth on a valentine. She has more hair than she needs; In the sun ’tis a woe to me! And her voice is a string of colored beads, Or steps leading into the sea. She loves me all that she can, And her ways to my ways resign; But she was not made for any man, And she never will be all mine.

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.

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

I shall die, but that is all that I shall do for Death; I am not on his pay-roll.

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

Curse thee, Life, I will live with thee no more! Thou hast mocked me, starved me, beat my body sore! And all for a pledge that was not pledged by me, I have kissed thy crust and eaten sparingly That I might eat again, and met thy sneers With deprecations, and thy blows with tears.

Please don't think me negligent or rude. I am both, in effect, of course, but please don't think me either.

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.

Life must go on, Though good men die.

Marriage...one of the most civilized institutions in the world...But...swimming 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.

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.

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

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.

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!

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.

The world stands out on either side No wider than the heart is wide; Above the world is stretched the sky, No higher than the soul is high. The heart can push the sea and land Farther away on either hand; The soul can split the sky in two, And let the face of God shine through. But East and West will pinch the heart That can not keep them pushed apart; And he whose soul is flat—the sky Will cave in on him by and by.

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

You are loved. If so, what else matters?

Music my rampart, and my only one.

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.