Quote

I can tell you that solitude Is not all exaltation, inner space Where the soul breathes and work can be done. Solitude exposes the nerve, Raises up ghosts. The past, never at rest, flows through it.

May Sarton

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May Sarton
Age: 83 †
Born: 1912
Born: May 3
Died: 1995
Died: July 16
Diarist
Poet
Writer
May Eleanor Sarton
Done
Breathe
Exaltation
Work
Inner
Nerve
Never
Flow
Ghosts
Rest
Flows
Space
Nerves
Tell
Ghost
Past
Raises
Exposes
Soul
Solitude
Breathes

More quotes by May Sarton

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It is clear that we do not exactly choose our poems our poems choose us.
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It is, I assume, quite easy to wither into old age, and hard to grow into it.
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If I were to choose one single thing that that would restore Paris to the senses, it would be that strangely sweet, unhealthy smell of the Métro, so very unlike the dank cold or the stuffy heat of subways in New York.
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My own feeling is that the only possible reason for engaging in the hard labor of writing a novel, is that one is bothered by something one needs to understand, and can come to understand only through the characters in the imagined situation.
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You will always be here with me As long as I live, A towering figure of love.
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I have written every poem, every novel, for the same purpose-to find out what I think, to know where I stand.
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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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Nobody stays special when they're old, Anna. That's what we have to learn.
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Family life! The United Nations is child's play compared to the tugs and splits and need to understand and forgive in any family.
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Once more I realize that solitude is my element, and the reason is that extreme awareness of other people (all naturally solitary people must feel this) precludes awareness of one's self, so after a while the self no longer knows that it exists.
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At some point I believe one has to stop holding back for fear of alienating some imaginary reader or real relative or friend, and come out with personal truth.
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The ambience here is order and beauty. That is what frightens me when I am first alone again. I feel inadequate. I have made an open place, a place for meditation. What if I cannot find myself inside it?
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We cannot afford not to fight for growth and understanding, even when it is painful, as it is bound to be.
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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.
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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.
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O cruel cloudless space, And pale bare ground where the poor infant lies! Why do we feel restored As in a sacramental place? Here Mystery is artifice, And here a vision of such peace is stored, Healing flows from it through our eyes.
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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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I am not a greedy person except about flowers and plants, and then I become fanatically greedy.
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People who are always thinking of the feelings of others can be very destructive because they are hiding so much from themselves.
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Routine is not a prison, but the way into freedom from time.
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