Literary Birthday – 3 May – May Sarton

May Sarton was born 3 May 1912 and died 16 July 1995.

Nine Quotes

1. We have to dare to be ourselves, however frightening or strange that self may prove to be.
2. Loneliness is the poverty of self; solitude is richness of self.
3. I always forget how important the empty days are, how important it may be sometimes not to expect to produce anything, even a few lines in a journal. A day when one has not pushed oneself to the limit seems a damaged damaging day, a sinful day. Not so! The most valuable thing one can do for the psyche, occasionally, is to let it rest, wander, live in the changing light of a room.
4. The more articulate one is, the more dangerous words become.
5. If art is not to be life-enhancing, what is it to be?
6. I suppose I have written novels to find out what I thought about something and poems to find out what I felt about something.
7. I feel happy to be keeping a journal again. I’ve missed it, missed naming things as they appear, missed the half hour when I push all duties aside and savour the experience of being alive in this beautiful place.
8. One must think like a hero to behave like a merely decent human being.
9. Most people have to talk so they won’t hear.

May Sarton is the pen name of Eleanore Marie Sarton. She was an American poet, novelist and memoirist. Her first volume of poetry, Encounters in April, was published in 1937 and her first novel, The Single Hound, in 1938. Her memoir, Journal of a Solitude, published in 1973 was an account of her experiences as a female artist.

Source for image

 by Amanda Patterson

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