May Sarton
May Sarton
May Sarton is the pen name of Eleanore Marie Sarton, an American poet, novelist and memoirist...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNon-Fiction Author
Date of Birth3 May 1912
CountryUnited States of America
May Sarton quotes about
were-meant-to-be looks knack
It looks as if I were meant to be alone, and that any hope of happiness is not meant. Am I too old to acquire the knack for happiness?
prayer real hard-times
Real joy is becoming exceedingly rare among artists of any kind. And I have an idea that those who can and do communicate it are always people who have had a hard time. Then the joy has no smugness or self-righteousness in it, is inclusive not exclusive, and comes close to prayer.
patience art patient
We can do anything, or almost, but how balanced, magnanimous, and modest one has to be to do anything! And also how patient. It is as true in the arts as anywhere else.
doors half hours
Why should it happen that among the great many women whom I see and am fond of, suddenly somebody I meet for half an hour opens the door into poetry?
stress solitude balance
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...
hate moving people
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.
writing written universal
I write poems, have always written them, to transcend the painfully personal and reach the universal.
compassion suffering world
The hardest thing we are asked to do in this world is to remain aware of suffering, suffering about which we can do nothing.
passion love-is views
How unnatural the imposed view, imposed by a puritanical ethos, that passionate love belongs only to the young, that people are dead from the neck down by the time they are forty, and that any deep feeling, any passion after that age, is either ludicrous or revolting!
solitude adore thirst
I simply adore being alone - I find it a consuming thirst - and when that thirst is slaked, then I am happy.
share nature-love bases
Am I too old, perhaps, ever to take in another's life to share with mine on a permanent basis? If so, I must make do with what I have... and what I have is a great richness of friends and a positively ardent love of nature. Not nothing!
feelings want strange
I want feelings to be expressed, to be open, to be natural, not to be looked on as strange. It's not weird if you feel deeply.
frustration age growing
Growing old is, of all things we experience, that which takes the most courage, and at a time when we have the least resources, especially with which to meet frustration.
self-confidence age weakness
For inside all the weakness of old age, the spirit, God knows, is as mercurial as it ever was.