The past, never at rest, flows through it. May Sarton quotes

1. We have to dare to be ourselves, however frightening or strange that self may prove to be. ― May Sarton

2. Loneliness is the poverty of self; solitude is richness of self. ― May Sarton

3. Public education was not founded to give society what it wants. Quite the opposite. ― May Sarton

4. The more articulate one is, the more dangerous words become. ― May Sarton

5. Do not deprive me of my age. I have earned it. ― May Sarton 

6. A house that does not have one worn, comfy chair in it is soulless. ― May Sarton

7. Anyone who is going to be a writer knows enough at fifteen to write several novels. ― May Sarton

8. Keep busy with survival. Imitate the trees. Learn to lose in order to recover, and remember nothing stays the same for long, not even pain. Sit it out. Let it all pass. Let it go. ― May Sarton

9. 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

10. Now I have become myself. It’s taken time, many years and places. ― May Sarton 

11. I feel like an inadequate machine, a machine that breaks down at crucial moments, grinds to a dreadful hault, ‘won’t go,’ or, even worse, explodes in some innocent person’s face. ― May Sarton

12. Does anything in nature despair except man?

An animal with a foot caught in a trap does not seem to despair.

It is too busy trying to survive. It is all closed in, to a kind of still, intense waiting. Is this a key?

Keep busy with survival. Imitate the trees.

Learn to lose in order to recover, and remember that nothing stays the same for long, not even pain, psychic pain.

Sit it out. Let it all pass. Let it go. ― May Sarton

13. There is no doubt that solitude is a challenge and to maintain balance within it a precarious business.

But I must not forget that, for me, being with people or even with one beloved person for any length of time without solitude is even worse.

I lost my center. I feel dispersed, scattered, in pieces.

I must have time alone in which to mull over my encounter, and to extract its juice, its essence, to understand what has really happened to me as a consequence of it. ― May Sarton

14. The most valuable thing we can do for the psyche, occasionally, is to let it rest, wander, live in the changing light of the room, not try to be or do anything whatever. ― May Sarton

15. Words are more powerful than perhaps anyone suspects, and once deeply engraved in a child’s mind, they are not easily eradicated. ― May Sarton 

16. One has only to set a loved human being against the fact that we are all in peril all the time to get back a sense of proportion.

What does anything matter compared to the reality of love and its span, so brief at best, maintained against such odds? ― May Sarton

17. I feel more alive when I’m writing than I do at any other time, except maybe when I’m making love. ― May Sarton

18. True feeling justifies whatever it may cost. ― May Sarton

19. Routine is not a prison, but the way to freedom from time. ― May Sarton

20. A garden is always a series of losses set against a few triumphs, like life itself. ― May Sarton 

21. It is harder for women, perhaps to be ‘one-pointed,’ much harder for them to clear space around whatever it is they want to do beyond household chores and family life.

Their lives are fragmented… the cry not so much for ‘a room of one’s own’ as time of one’s own.

Conflict becomes acute, whatever it may be about, when there is no margin left on any day in which to try at least to resolve it. ― May Sarton