Edna St. Vincent Millay Quotes

135 Sourced Quotes

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.

Edna St. Vincent Millay
God, I can push the grass apart,
And lay my finger on thy heart.

Edna St. Vincent Millay
Set the foot down with distrust on the crust of the world — it is thin.

Edna St. Vincent Millay
It's not true that life is one damn thing after another—it's one damn thing over and over.

Edna St. Vincent Millay
Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies.
Nobody that matters, that is.

Edna St. Vincent Millay
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.

Edna St. Vincent Millay
Where you used to be, there is a hole in the world, which I find myself constantly walking around in the day-time, and falling into at night.

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

Edna St. Vincent Millay
I know I am but summer to your heart,
And not the full four seasons of the year.

Edna St. Vincent Millay
How strange a thing is death, bringing to his knees, bringing to his antlers The buck in the snow... Life, looking out attentive from the eyes of the doe.

Edna St. Vincent Millay
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.

Edna St. Vincent Millay
Birds that cannot even sing —
Dare to come again in spring!

Edna St. Vincent Millay
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!

Edna St. Vincent Millay
Do you suppose, when you and I are dead, dear, they will publish the Love Letters of Edna St. Vincent Millay and Her Mother?

Edna St. Vincent Millay
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,...

Edna St. Vincent Millay
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!

Edna St. Vincent Millay
And life goes on forever like the gnawing of a mouse...

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

Edna St. Vincent Millay
We think-although of course, now, we very seldom Clearly think- That the other side of War is Peace.

Edna St. Vincent Millay
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...

Edna St. Vincent Millay
Night falls fast. Today is in the past. Blown from the dark hill hither to my door Three flakes, then four Arrive, then many more.

Edna St. Vincent Millay
All will be well, we say; it is a habit, like the rising of the sun,
For our country to prosper; who can prevail against us? No one.

Edna St. Vincent Millay
All your lovely words are spoken.
Once the ivory box is broken,
Beats the golden bird no more.

Edna St. Vincent Millay
Time does not forfeit; Time does not abstain;
The future in one fist, he eats the past.
I know this; yet again and yet again
I try to hold the present, make it last
One moment, that the simple great be slain
Not unperceived. No hope — Time eats so fast.

Edna St. Vincent Millay
Women are
Superior to men in every way,
But chiefly in the intellect.

Edna St. Vincent Millay