May Sarton Quotes - Page 11

Quotes about:

• in the very long run any success devours - and perhaps also corrupts.

  May Sarton

  Success, Running, Long

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• If one is the kind of creature I am and wants to do the kind of writing I want to do, an undisturbed bourgeois existence with no distractions seems in order. A single meeting outside the family upsets one's whole inner web, makes one start off on two-days' thinking and weighing, destroys a delicate balance etc. etc. ... I now have enough friends to last me a lifetime and that is enough. I am going to close the doors and hibernate at least for a couple of years. I am frightfully depressed about my work. It seems to me perfectly mediocre.

  May Sarton

  Couple, Writing, Thinking

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• Wrinkles here and there seem unimportant compared to the Gestalt of the whole person I have become in this past year.

  May Sarton

  Past, Wrinkles, Years

  May Sarton (2014). “Journal of a Solitude”, p.53, Open Road Media

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• I can understand people simply fleeing the mountainous effort Christmas has become... but there are always a few saving graces and finally they make up for all the bother and distress.

  May Sarton

  Christmas, People, Effort

  May Sarton (2014). “Journal of a Solitude”, p.47, Open Road Media

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• He [the cat] wound himself around her legs, purring the purr of ardent desire like a kettle coming to a boil and then bubbling very fast.

  May Sarton

  Cat, Desire, Legs

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• The only way through pain…is to absorb, probe, understand exactly what it is and what it means. To close the door on pain is to miss the chance for growth.

  May Sarton

  Pain, Mean, Doors

  May Sarton (2014). “Recovering: A Journal”, p.7, Open Road Media

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• Solitude is the salt of personhood. It brings out the authentic flavor of every experience.

  May Sarton

  Solitude, Flavor, Salt

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• Innocence is not pure so much as pleased, Always expectant, bright-eyed, self-enclosed

  May Sarton

  Self, Innocence, Pure

  May Sarton (2014). “Collected Poems: 1930–1973”, p.146, Open Road Media

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• You will always be here with me; As long as I live, A towering figure of love.

  May Sarton

  Long, Memorial, Figures

  May Sarton (2014). “Coming into Eighty: Poems”, p.36, Open Road Media

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• Pain can make a whole winter bright, like fever, force us to live deep and hard.

  May Sarton

  Pain, Winter, Fever

  May Sarton (2014). “At Eighty-Two: A Journal”, p.73, Open Road Media

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• We have to believe that every person counts, counts as a creative force that can move mountains.

  May Sarton

  Believe, Moving, Creative

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• I have never written a book that was not born out of a question I needed to answer for myself.

  May Sarton

  Book, Answers, Born

  May Sarton, Edith Royce Schade (1994). “From May Sarton's well: writings of May Sarton”, Papier Mache Pr

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• About loving, I have little to learn from the young.

  May Sarton

  Littles, Youth, Young

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• Life comes in clusters, clusters of solitude, then a cluster when there is hardly time to breathe.

  May Sarton

  Life, Solitude, Breathe

  May Sarton (2014). “Journal of a Solitude”, p.100, Open Road Media

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• It feels a long way up and down from zero.

  May Sarton

  Zero, Long, Way

  May Sarton (2014). “Collected Poems: 1930–1973”, p.248, Open Road Media

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• There the door is always open into the “holy” — growth, birth, death.

  May Sarton

  Garden, Doors, Religion

  "The Journals of May Sarton Volume One: Journal of a Solitude, Plant Dreaming Deep, and Recovering".

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• The value of solitude - one of its values - is, of course, that there is nothing to cushion against attacks from within, just as there is nothing to help balance at times of particular stress or depression.

  May Sarton

  Stress, Solitude, Balance

  May Sarton (2014). “Journal of a Solitude”, p.8, Open Road Media

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• I suppose I envy painters because they can meditate on form and structure, on color and light, and not concern themselves with human torment and chaos. It is restful even to imagine expression without words.

  May Sarton

  Light, Expression, Color

  May Sarton (2014). “Journal of a Solitude”, p.90, Open Road Media

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• I have sometimes wondered also whether in people like me who come to the boil fast (soupe au lait, the French call this trait, like a milk soup that boils over) the tantrum is not a built-in safety valve against madness or illness. ... The fierce tension in me, when it is properly channeled, creates the good tension for work. But when it becomes unbalanced I am destructive. How to isolate that good tension is my problem these days. Or, put in another way, how to turn the heat down fast enough so the soup won't boil over!

  May Sarton

  Anger, People, Safety

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• Failure would only be if you had somewhere stopped growing. As far as I can see the whole duty of the artist is to keep on growing.

  May Sarton

  Failure, Artist, Growing

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• I am furious at all the letters to answer, when all I want to do is think and write poems. ... I long for open time, with no obligations except toward the inner world and what is going on there.

  May Sarton

  Writing, Thinking, Long

  May Sarton (2017). “The Journals of May Sarton Volume One: Journal of a Solitude, Plant Dreaming Deep, and Recovering”, p.90, Open Road Media

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• Being very rich as far as I am concerned is having a margin. The margin is being able to give.

  May Sarton

  Giving, Able, Wealth

  May Sarton (2014). “Journal of a Solitude”, p.28, Open Road Media

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• all great people are humble because great people have great work and are humbled by the largeness of their dreams.

  May Sarton

  Dream, Humble, Humility

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• life is always bringing unexpected gifts.

  May Sarton

  Unexpected Gifts, Unexpected, Life Is

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• My musical genius reached its apex thirty years ago when I played the triangle in Haydn's children's symphony, so I could not play unless you needed someone to make one sustained note!

  May Sarton

  Children, Musical Genius, Years

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