333 Quotes by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Give back my book and take my kiss instead.

I met the wolf alone and was devoured in peace.

Your broad sky, Giant, Is the shelf of a cupboard. I make bean-stalks—I’m A builder like yourself; But bean-stalks is my trade—I couldn’t make a shelf

And so beneath the weight lay IAnd suffered death, but could not die.

Lie down beside these watersThat bubble from the spring;Hear in the desert silenceThe desert sparrow sing;Draw from the shapeless momentSuch pattern as you can;And cleave henceforth to Beauty;Expect no more from man.Man, with his ready answer,His sad and hearty word,For every cause in limbo,For every debt deferred,For every pledge forgotten,His eloquent and grimDeep empty gaze upon you,—Expect no more from him.

You see, I am a poet, and not quite right in the head, darling. It’s only that.

Few Come This WayFew come this way; not that the darknessDeters them, but they comeReluctant here who fear to find,Thickening the darkness, what they left behindSucking its cheeks before the fire at home,The palsied Indecision from whose dancing headPrecipitately they fled, only to come againUpon him here,Clutching at the wrist of Venture with a coldHand, aiming to fall in with him, companionOf the new as of the old.

I bleed, but know not wherefore, know not where.

Marriage...one of the most civilized institutions in the world...But...swimming is one of the most wonderful of sports, and yet there are always some people who cannot swim who insist on going into the water and getting drowned. Many people spoil marriage in a like manner. One should be sure she knows how to be married before rushing into it.