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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.

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
Moving
Chameleon
Hate
Moves
Spirit
Effect
Change
Poet
Must
Effects
Never
Terrible
Love
Worry
People
Free

More quotes by May Sarton

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We are all, whether we know it or not, in search of a way to enrich, to drink during the fizz, to inhale deeper our gifts, in a desperation for some little understanding before death.
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Go rich in poverty. Go rich in poetry. This nothingness is plentitude.
May Sarton
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What we have not has made us what we are. / ... / What we are not drives us to consummation.
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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For to be desperate is to discover strength. / We die of comfort and by conflict live.
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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.
May Sarton
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And one cold starry night / Whatever your belief / The phoenix will take flight / Over the seas of grief / To sing her thrilling song / To stars and waves and sky / For neither old nor young / The phoenix does not die.
May Sarton
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Light is snow sifted / To an abstraction.
May Sarton
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a poet never feels useful.
May Sarton
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It is curious how any making of order makes one feel mentally ordered, ordered inside.
May Sarton
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Routine is not a prison, but the way into freedom from time.
May Sarton
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Words are more powerful than perhaps anyone suspects, and once deeply engraved in a child's mind, they are not easily eradicated.
May Sarton
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[In old age] there is a childlike innocence, often, that has nothing to do with the childishness of senility. The moments become precious . . .
May Sarton
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Absence becomes the greatest Presence.
May Sarton
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So this was fame at last! Nothing but a vast debt to be paid to the world in energy, blood, and time.
May Sarton
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What can I have that I still want?
May Sarton
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It is sometimes the most fragile things that have the power to endure and become sources of strength.
May Sarton
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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.
May Sarton
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instant intimacy was too often followed by disillusion.
May Sarton
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I sometimes think men don't 'hear' very well, if I take your meaning to be 'understand what is going on in a person.' That's what makes them so restful. Women wear each other out with their everlasting touching of the nerve.
May Sarton