Edna Saint Vincent Millay Quotes

Life must go on; I forget just why. ~ Edna St. Vincent Millay

No one but Night, with tears on her dark face, watches beside me in this windy place. ~ Edna St. Vincent Millay

Ashes of Life"

Love has gone and left me and the days are all alike;
Eat I must, and sleep I will, and would that night were here!
But ah! to lie awake and hear the slow hours strike!
Would that it were day again! with twilight near!

Love has gone and left me and I don't know what to do;
This or that or what you will is all the same to me;
But all the things that I begin I leave before I'm through,
There's little use in anything as far as I can see.

Love has gone and left me, and the neighbors knock and borrow,
And life goes on forever like the gnawing of a mouse,
And to-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow
There's this little street and this little house. ~ Edna St. Vincent Millay

Perfection consists in one thing alone, which is doing the will of God. For, according to Our Lord's words, it suffices for perfection to deny self, to take up the cross and to follow Him. Now who denies himself and takes up his cross and follows Christ better than he who seeks not to do his own will, but always that of God? Behold, now, how little is needed to become as Saint? Nothing more than to acquire the habit of willing, on every occasion, what God wills. ~ St. Vincent

Not poppy, nor mandrake, Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world, Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep, Which thou owest yesterday. ~ Edna St. Vincent Millay

We must love our neighbor as being made in the image of God and as an object of His love. ~ Vincent De Paul

You wrote me a beautiful letter, I wonder if you meant it to be as beautiful as it was. I think you did; for somehow I know that your feeling for me, however slight it is, is of the nature of love ... When you tell me to come, I will come, by the next train, just as I am. This is not meekness, be assured; I do not come naturally by meekness; know that it is a proud surrender to You. ~ Edna St. Vincent Millay

Not for the flag Of any land because myself was born there Will I give up my life. But I will love that land where man is free, And that will I defend. ~ Edna St. Vincent Millay

11.

If it should rain --(the sneezy moon
Said: Rain)--then I shall hear it soon
From shingles into gutters fall...
And know of what concerns me, all:

The garden will be wet till noon--
I may not walk-- my temper leans
To myths and legends--through the beans
Till they are dried-- lest I should spread
Diseases they have never had.

I hear the rain: it comes down straight.
Now I can sleep, I need not wait
To close the windows anywhere.

Tomorrow, it may be, I might
Do things to set the whole world right.
There's nothing I can do tonight. ~ Edna St. Vincent Millay

Death devours all lovely things. ~ Edna St. Vincent Millay

To be grown up is to sit at the table with people who have died, who neither listen nor speak ... ~ Edna St. Vincent Millay

In this unlighted cave, one step forward
That step can be the down-step into the Abyss.
But we, we have no sense of direction; impetus
Is all we have; we do not proceed, we only
Roll down the mountain,
Like disbalanced boulders, crushing before us many
Delicate springing things, whose plan it was to grow. ~ Edna St. Vincent Millay

God, I can push the grass apart and lay my finger on Thy heart. ~ Edna St. Vincent Millay

Even after several hospitalizations for alcohol and drug-related nervous breakdowns, poet Edna St. Vincent Millay defined sobriety as restricting her daily intake of liquor to a liter and a half of wine. ~ Judith Thurman

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. ~ Edna St. Vincent Millay

The younger generation forms a country of its own. ~ Edna St. Vincent Millay

The world stands out on either side, No wider than the heart is wide. ~ Edna St. Vincent Millay

But the roaring of the fire,
And the warmth of fur,
And the boiling of the kettle
Were beautiful to her! ~ Edna St. Vincent Millay

Second Fig
Safe upon the solid rock the ugly houses stand:
Come and see my shining palace built upon the sand! ~ Edna St. Vincent Millay

I felt his gaze, I heard his moan,
And knew his hunger as my own. ~ Edna St. Vincent Millay

We were all imitative. We all wandered in after Miss Edna St. Vincent Millay. We were all being dashing and gallant, declaring we weren't virgins, whether we were or not. ~ Dorothy Parker

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

If you walk east at daybreak from the town
To the cliff's foot, by climbing steadily
You cling at noon whence there is no way down
But to go toppling backward to the sea.
And not for birds nor birds' eggs, so they say,
But for a flower that in these fissures grows,
Forms have been seen to move throughout the day
Skyward; but what its name is no one knows.
'Tis said you find beside them on the sand
This flower, relinquished by the broken hand. ~ Edna St. Vincent Millay

Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain; Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink. ~ Edna St. Vincent Millay

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

If Edna St. Vincent Millay was right and childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies, then my childhood ended when I was fifteen. ~ Katja Millay

Need we say it was not love, Now that love is perished? ~ Edna St. Vincent Millay

She learned her hands in a fairy-tale,
And her mouth on a valentine. ~ Edna St. Vincent Millay

Youth, have no pity; leave no farthing here For age to invest in compromise and fear. ~ Edna St. Vincent Millay

I know what my heart is like Since your love died: It is like a hollow ledge Holding a little pool Left there by the tide, A little tepid pool, Drying inward from the edge. ~ Edna St. Vincent Millay