Edna St. Vincent Millay
Not truth, but faith, it is that keeps the world alive.Collection: Truth
The soul can split the sky in two and let the face of God shine through.Collection: God
Music my rampart, and my only one.Collection: Music
Please give me some good advice in your next letter. I promise not to follow it.Collection: Good
Beauty is whatever gives joy.Collection: Beauty
God, I can push the grass apart and lay my finger on Thy heart.Collection: God
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!
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.
My god is all gods in one. When I see a beautiful sunset, I worship the god of Nature; when I see a hidden action brought to light, I worship the god of Truth; when I see a bad man punished and a good man go free, I worship the god of Justice; when I see a penitent forgiven, I worship the god of Mercy.
The longest absence is less perilous to love than the terrible trials of incessant proximity.
It's not true that life is one damn thing after another; it's one damn thing over and over.
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.
Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies. Nobody that matters, that is.
The young are so old, they are born with their fingers crossed.
Set the foot down with distrust on the crust of the world - it is thin.
It is high time we found out about this man Cummings. Let us give him every opportunity to show us at once whether he is a genius, a charlatan, or a congenital defective - and get him off our minds.
I've written so many verses and keep on writing so many more that I became afraid that if I didn't write them into one big book, I might forget some of them.
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.
What the customer demands is last year's model, cheaper. To find out what the customer needs you have to understand what the customer is doing as well as he understands it. Then you build what he needs and you educate him to the fact that he needs it.
Some of us have been thinking and talking too long without doing anything. Poems are perfect; picketing, sometimes, is better.
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.
A person who publishes a book willfully appears before the populace with his pants down. If it is a good book nothing can hurt him. If it is a bad book nothing can help him.
I went to Boston fully expecting to be arrested - arrested by a polizia created by a government that my ancestors rebelled to establish.
I see things with my own eyes, just as if they were the first eyes that ever saw, and then I set about to tell, as best I can, just what I've seen.
I'm so tired of hearing about 'Renascence,' I'm nearly dead. I find it's as hard to live down an early triumph as an early indiscretion.
Strange how few, After alls said and done, the things that are Of moment.Collection: Done
Pour away despair and rinse the cup. Eat happiness like bread.Collection: Happiness
It's not true that life is one damn thing after another; it is one damn thing over and over.Collection: Funny
Life must go on; I forget just why.Collection: Grief
I will be the gladdest thing under the sun! I will touch a hundred flowers and not pick one.Collection: Nature
Life is a quest and love a quarrelCollection: Life
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.Collection: I Miss You
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.Collection: Beautiful
You are loved. If so, what else matters?Collection: Matter
Life isn't one thing after another, it's the same thing over and over.Collection: One Thing
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.Collection: Heart
I love humanity but I hate people.Collection: Funny
O world, I cannot hold thee close enough!Collection: World
Beauty never slumbers; All is in her name; But the rose remembers The dust from which it came.Collection: Beauty
April comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.Collection: Spring
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.Collection: Book
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.Collection: Summer
What should I be but just what I am?Collection: Should
Ah, I could lay me down in this long grass And close my eyes, and let the quiet wind Blow over meCollection: Eye
I am all the time talking about you, and bragging, to one person or another. I am like the Ancient Mariner, who had a tale in his heart he must unfold to all. I am always buttonholing somebody and saying, "Someday you must meet my mother."Collection: Daughter
Beautiful as a dandelion-blossom golden in the green grass, this life can be.Collection: Beautiful
And her voice is a string of colored beads, Or steps leading into the sea.Collection: Sea
Death devours all lovely things.Collection: Lovely
I am not afraid of lawyers as I used to be. They are lambs in wolves' clothing.Collection: Law