"What they learned [...] was to speak on the phones in such a way that your hearer couldn't help but understand what you meant, and in such a way that you, speaking, had no choice but to express what you meant, they learned to make speech — transparent, like glass, so that through the words the face is seen truly."

"The world is founded on a pillar which is founded on the Deep."

"The cold winds sweeping the mountain-height, And pathless was the dreary wild, And ’mid the cheerless hours of night A mother wandered with her child: As through the drifting snows she press’d, The babe was sleeping on her breast."

"If there is any thing that keeps the mind Open to angel visits, and repels The ministry of ill—tis human love."

"It is the month of June, The month of leaves and roses, When pleasant sights salute the eyes, And pleasant scents the noses."

"The value of life deepens incalculably with the privileges of travel."

"But the sin forgiven by Christ in Heaven By man is cursed alway!"

"Let us weep in our darkness—but weep not for him! Not for him—who, departing, leaves millions in tears! Not for him—who has died full of honor and years! Not for him—who ascended Fame’s ladder so high From the round at the top he has stepp'd to the sky."

"For it stirs the blood in an old man’s heart, And makes his pulses fly, To catch the thrill of a happy voice, And the light of a pleasant eye."

"They are all up—the innumerable stars— And hold their place in heaven. […] There they stand, Shining in order, like a living hymn Written in light, awaking at the breath Of the celestial dawn, and praising Him Who made them, with the harmony of spheres."

"One lamp—thy mother's love—amid the stars Shall lift its pure flame changeless, and, before The throne of God burn through eternity— Holy—as it was lit and lent thee here."

"At present there is no distinction among the upper ten thousand of the city."

"Wisdom sits alone Topmost in Heaven."

"He who binds His soul to knowledge steals the key of heaven."

"One thing there's no getting by— I've been a wicked girl." said I; "But if I can't be sorry, why, I might as well be glad!"

"Edna St. Vincent Millay was outspoken and feisty."

"When I was a freshman at Brandeis, an instructor told us that we should not like Edna St. Vincent Millay. He didn’t say it in so many words, but the message was that we shouldn’t like her because she slept around. No women got into the modernist boys’ club except Marianne Moore, who was respected because she was respectable. Sexually respectable. This sounds oversimplified, but it isn’t. All the other women poets had sex lives — kinky sex lives."

"T. S. Eliot, Millay, Helene Margaret, I read and connected with because they made me feel what they were feeling, or wanted to feel."

"Wylie and Millay were standard in high school-women whom I really loved."

"When I was in high school, I had never read Black poetry. The one poet of color whom I had read, and loved, was Pablo Neruda. I have to say that Neruda and Millay were the two poets I loved. All the others didn't make much sense. Except Eliot. He really got to me."

"When people talk about American literature, they really mean Hemingway, Faulkner and Poe and when they do include women it's Emily Dickinson and Edna St. Vincent Millay. To decide to take that on and say, 'I will speak and will be heard'-that takes a lot of guts."

"The only people I really hate are servants. They are not really human beings at all. As attributed without citation in At Home by Bill Bryson, Chapter V, "The Scullery and the Larder" p. 111"

"… one damn thing after another … one damn thing over and over."

"Childhood is not from birth to a certain age and at a certain age The child is grown, and puts away childish things. Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies. Nobody that matters, that is."

"Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain; Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink And rise and sink and rise and sink again; Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath, Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone; Yet many a man is making friends with death Even as I speak, for lack of love alone."

"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."

"Euclid alone has looked on Beauty bare. Let all who prate of Beauty hold their peace, And lay them prone upon the earth and cease To ponder on themselves, the while they stare At nothing, intricately drawn nowhere."

"My heart is warm with 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."

"After all, my earstwhile dear, My no longer cherished, Need we say it was not love, Now that love is perished?"

"But you are mobile as the veering air, And all your charms more changeful than the tide, Wherefore to be inconstant is no care: I have but to continue at your side. So wanton, light and false, my love, are you, I am most faithless when I most am true."

"Many a bard's untimely death Lends unto his verses breath; Here's a song was never sung: Growing old is dying young."

"Safe upon the solid rock the ugly houses stand; Come and see my shining palace built upon the sand!"

"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."

"It's little I know what's in my heart, What's in my mind it's little I know, But there's that in me must up and start, And it's little I care where my feet go."

"The world stands out on either side No wider than the heart is wide; Above the world is stretched the sky, — No higher than the soul is high. The heart can push the sea and land Farther away on either hand; The soul can split the sky in two, And let the face of God shine through. But East and West will pinch the heart That can not keep them pushed apart; And he whose soul is flat — the sky Will cave in on him by and by."

"But, sure, the sky is big, I said; Miles and miles above my head; So here upon my back I'll lie And look my fill into the sky. And so I looked, and, after all, The sky was not so very tall. The sky, I said, must somewhere stop, And — sure enough! — I see the top! The sky, I thought, is not so grand; I 'most could touch it with my hand! And reaching up my hand to try, I screamed to feel it touch the sky."

"There are two kinds of men who never amount to much: those who cannot do what they are told and those who can do nothing else."

"The awful phantom of the hungry poor."

"He is one of those people to whom you must allow moods,—when their sun shines, dance,—and when their vapors rise, sit in the shadow."

"Beauty vanishes like a vapor, Preach the men of musty morals."

"A place of dream, the Holy Land Hangs midway between earth and heaven."

"Ah, happy world, where all things live Creatures of one great law, indeed; Bound by strong roots, the splendid flower,— Swept by great seas, the drifting seed!"

"Are we no greater than the noise we make Along one blind atomic pilgrimage Whereon by crass chance billeted we go Because our brains and bones and cartilage Will have it so?"

"A thousand golden sheaves were lying there, Shining and still, but not for long to stay— As if a thousand girls with golden hair Might rise from where they slept and go away."

"Your Dollar is your only Word, The wrath of it your only fear. You build it altars tall enough To make you see, but your are blind; You cannot leave it long enough To look before you or behind."

"I shall have more to say when I am dead."

"Whenever Richard Cory went down town,We people on the pavement looked at him: He was a gentleman from sole to crown,Clean favored, and imperially slim.And he was always quietly arrayed,And he was always human when he talked;But still he fluttered pulses when he said,"Good-morning," and he glittered when he walked.And he was rich—yes, richer than a king— And admirably schooled in every grace:In fine, we thought that he was everythingTo make us wish that we were in his place.So on we worked, and waited for the light,And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,Went home and put a bullet through his head."

"No matter what we are, and what we sing, Time finds a withered leaf in every laurel"

"Oh for a poet - for a beacon bright"

"Another poem that I loved first as music, later pondered for what it could tell me about women and men and marriage, was Edwin Arlington Robinson's "Eros Turannos":"