Edna St. Vincent Millay Quotes - Page 8

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!

Euclid alone has looked on Beauty bare. Let all who prate of Beauty hold their peace, And lay them prone upon the earth and cease To ponder on themselves, the while they stare At nothing, intricately drawn nowhere.

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

And he whose soul is flat -- the sky Will cave in on him by and by.

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

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.

I hate people but I love gatherings.

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

[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.

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

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.

... but the rain Is full of ghosts tonight

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

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

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 !

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

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.

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.

She is happy where she lies With the dust upon her eyes.

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.

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

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

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.

So up I got in anger, And took a book I had, And put a ribbon on my hair To please a passing lad. And, "One thing there's no getting by -- I've been a wicked girl," said I; But if I can't be sorry, why, I might as well be glad!

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