"It is the place of renewal and of safety, where for a little while there will be no harm or attack and, while every sense is nourished, the soul rests."
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Quote collection
May Sarton quotes (page 8 of 14)
275 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"poetry is first of all a way of life and only secondarily a way of writing."
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"It is clear that we do not exactly choose our poems; our poems choose us."
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"We have to make myths of our lives, the point being that if we do, then every grief or inexplicable seizure by weather, woe, or work can-if we discipline ourselves and think hard enough-be turned to account, be made to yield further insight into what it is to be alive, to be a human being."
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"Poetry finds its perilous equilibrium somewhere between music and speech."
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"I asked myself the question, 'What do you want of your life?' and I realized with a start of recognition and terror, 'Exactly what I have - but to be commensurate, to handle it all better."
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"... the reason why there are so few first-class poets is that many people have intense feelings or first-class minds but to get the two together so that you will be willing to put a poem through sixty drafts, to be that self-critical, to keep breaking it down, that is what is rare. Right now most poetry is just self-indulgence."
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"The body is a universe in itself and must be held as sacred as anything in creation....It is dangerous to forget the body as sacramental."
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"One of the springs of poetry is joy."
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"we are never done with thinking about our parents, I suppose, and come to know them better long after they are dead than we ever did when they were alive."
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"I simply adore being alone - I find it a consuming thirst - and when that thirst is slaked, then I am happy."
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"Light is snow sifted / To an abstraction."
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"have the courage to write whatever your dream is for yourself."
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"Nobody stays special when they're old, Anna. That's what we have to learn."
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"The poet must be free to love or hate as the spirit moves him, free to change, free to be a chameleon, free to be an enfant terrible. He must above all never worry about this effect on other people."
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"I cannot understand why poetry is not taught at schools as a way of seeing, a quick, untiring path to essentials."
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"It is always hard to hear the buried truth from another person."
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"Do I think there's life after death? No, I think my books are my life after death."
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"Poetry has a way of teaching one what one needs to know ... if one is honest."
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"Do not deprive me of my age. I have earned it."
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