When anyone asks me about the Irish character, I say look at the trees. Maimed, stark and misshapen, but ferociously tenacious.


Edna O'Brien

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Set the foot down with distrust on the crust of the world -- it is thin.
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God, I can push the grass apart and lay my finger on Thy heart.
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Safe upon the solid rock the ugly houses stand: Come and see my shining palace built upon the sand!
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Pity me that the heart is slow to learn What the swift mind beholds at every turn.
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I've been a wicked girl," said I: "But if I can't be sorry, why, I might as well be glad!
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Lost in Hell,-Persephone,
Take her head upon your knee;
Say to her, "My dear, my dear,
EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY
The Englishman foxtrots as he fox-hunts, with all his being, through thickets, through ditches, over...
EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY
Safe upon the solid rock the ugly houses stand: Come and see my shining palace built upon the sand!
EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY
Think not for this, however, the poor treasonOf my stout blood against my staggering brain,I shall r...
EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY
Tea was such a comfort.
EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY
I am glad that I paid so little attention to good advice; had I abided by it I might have been saved...
EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY
Life isn't one damn thing after another. It's the same damn thing again and again.
EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY
Pity me that the heart is slow to learn / What the swift mind beholds at every turn.
EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY
Life is a quest and love a quarrel ...
EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY
If I love you Wednesday, What is that to you? I do not love you Thursday - so much is true.
EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY
It gives a lovely light.
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
A person who publishes a book willfully appears before the populace with his pants down. If it is a ...
EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY
We are all ruled in what we do by impulses; and these impulses are so organized that our actions in ...
EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY
Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;...
EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY
Beauty is whatever gives joy.
EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY
Not truth, but faith, it is that keeps the world alive.
EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY
Well, I have lost you; and I lost you fairly;
In my own way, and with my full consent.
Say...
EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY
Night falls fast.
Today is in the past.

Blown from the dark hill hither to my door EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY
I love humanity but I hate people.
EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY
Few Come This Way

Few come this way; not that the darkness
Deters them, but t...
EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY
I know I am but summer to your heart, And not the full four seasons of the year;
And you must ...
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
Music my rampart, and my only one.
EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY
TO what purpose, April, do you return again?
Beauty is not enough.
You can no longer qui...
EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY
Song of a Second April

APRIL this year, not otherwise
Than April of a year ag...
EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY
Moon, that against the lintel of the west
Your forehead lean until the gate be swung,
Long...
EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY
After all, my erstwhile dear,
My no longer cherished,
Need we say it was not love,
Ju...
EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY
Ebb

I know what my heart is like
Since your love died:
It is like a holl...
EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY
Fiction should be in its way subversive. I don't think books should be neat or gentle or genteel or ...
EDNA O'BRIEN
Be to her, Persephone,
All the things I might not be;
Take her head upon your knee.
S...
EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY
Childhood Is the Kingdom Where Nobody Dies.
EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY
For men that are afraid to die
Must warm their hands before a lie;
The fire that's built o...
EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY
Love is Not All

Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink
Nor slumber nor a r...
EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY
Dirge Without Music

I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the...
EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY