Edna St. Vincent Millay Quotes

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.

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!

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

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

Life must go on; I forget just why.

Beauty is whatever gives joy.

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

Life is a quest and love a quarrel

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

You are loved. If so, what else matters?

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

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.

I love humanity but I hate people.

O world, I cannot hold thee close enough!

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

What should I be but just what I am?

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.

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.

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

April comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.