Sappho Poetry Quotes & Sayings

]sing to us
the one with violets in her lap
]mostly
]goes astray — Sappho

Girls, be good to these spirits of music and poetry
that breast your threshold with their scented gifts.
Lift the lyre, clear and sweet, they leave with you.
As for me, this body is now so arthritic
I cannot play, hardly even hold the instrument.
Can you believe my white hair was once black?
And oh, the soul grows heavy with the body.
Complaining knee-joints creak at every move.
To think I danced as delicate as a deer!
Some gloomy poems came from these thoughts:
useless: we are all born to lose life,
and what is worse, girls, to lose youth.
The legend of the goddess of the dawn
I'm sure you know: how rosy Eos
madly in love with gorgeous young Tithonus
swept him like booty to her hiding-place
but then forgot he would grow old and grey
while she in despair pursued her immortal way. — Sappho

From a child I was taught to forgive and forget, but it's difficult to forget these things, the loss of parents, of children and grandchildren. — Ann Leckie

neither for me honey nor the honey bee — Sappho

On May 3rd, THE MOMENT is going to be my moment. — Luis Collazo

One of the things I've observed since I was a kid, is that if you work on something long enough you'll find I, even if you're lost for a while you'll find it. — Chris Wedge

Make today worth remembering. — Zig Ziglar

... I felt each beat slowing as his breathe fell away from my world. "You're going to be okay" I lied, as blood spilled painting my fingers crimson. He stared blankly gasping for breath. My fingers never worked the same after that day. They became wild, fierce
unruly. And heart? I don't know where heart is; I think he still has her. — Coco J. Ginger

Sapphic Chords

On what marble stones would you scratch your love today?
Spray it on brick walls, rap it in pool halls,
hang it on the clothes line with you lingerie?
Oh, Sappho!

Would you swing a softball bat, wear lipstick, ride a Harley?
What novels would you pen, what political party?
Is that really tenderness in your final line, or do words hang for what you
couldn't say?

What remnants you left behind, too little but enough
for us to know the luxury of your lust.
Your heat, your wisdom, your passion - all left in fragmented trust.
Oh, Sappho! — Nancy Boutilier

Eros, again now, the loosener of limbs troubles me,
Bittersweet, sly, uncontrollable creature ... . — Sappho

I can do this, Logan," she said confidently. "Kala trained me for this."
"What if something goes wrong? I can't exactly wave a magic wand over you. I'm not Harry Potter."
"Who?"
"Never mind. — Alyxandra Harvey

The touched heart madly stirs,
your laughter is water hurrying over pebbles -
every gesture is a proclamation,
every sound is speech ... — Sappho

]Sardis
often turning her thoughts here
]
you like a goddess
and in your song most of all she rejoiced.
But now she is conspicuous among Lydian women
as sometimes at sunset
the rosyfingered moon
surpasses all the stars. And her light
stretches over salt sea
equally and flowerdeep fields.
And the beautiful dew is poured out
and roses bloom and frail
chervil and flowering sweetclover.
But she goes back and forth remembering
gentle Atthis and in longing
she bites her tender mind — Sappho

gathering flowers so very delicate a girl — Sappho

All I know is that D'Aubuisson is a free enterprise man and deeply religious. — Jesse Helms

but if you love us
choose a younger bed
for I cannot bear
to live with you when I am the older one — Sappho

When these idiot rightwingers start complaining about poetry being political, I'm fond of reciting Sappho to them, who excluded men from her world. Why does she exclude them? Mostly because of their warmongering. — Sam Hamill

Skin color doesn't make you different,' Melody said. 'We're all the same on the inside.' 'The only people who ever say that,' Raymon replied, 'are white. — Jodi Picoult

Sappho is a great poet because she is a lesbian, which gives her erotic access to the Muse. Sappho and the homosexual-tending Emily Dickinson stand alone above women poets, because poetry's mystical energies are ruled by a hierach requiring the sexual subordination of her petitioners. Women have achieved more as novelists than as poets because the social novel operates outside the ancient marriage of myth and eroticism. — Camille Paglia

No holy place existed without us then,
no woodland, no dance, no sound.
Beyond all hope, I prayed those timeless
days we spent might be made twice as long.
I prayed one word: I want.
Someone, I tell you, will remember us,
even in another time. — Sappho

One of the most important differences I see between prose and poetry is the music of the language. — Pattiann Rogers

Josh: Just because you're not looking for something doesn't mean you won't find it.
Sean: Well, aren't you quite the fucking fortune cookie. — Shannon Stacey

In fact she herself once blamed me
Kyprogeneia
because I prayed
this word:
I want. — Sappho

[Aslan said,] Well done, last of the Kings of Narnia, who stood firm at the darkest hour. — C.S. Lewis

I walk out into the kitchen the next morning, rubbing my eyes. I stop in my tracks as I see a man standing over the stove. Naked. He has an extremely white ass and is frying something in the pan. — Chantal Fernando

My voice rings down through thousands of years to coil around your body and give you strength, you who have wept in direct sunlight, who have hungered in invisible chains, tremble to the cadence of my legacy: An army of lovers shall not fail. — Rita Mae Brown

Most of the books of erotic poetry available today are either too old or are big anthologies covering the same poets and poems. There is a lack of new and original work. Most of us have read something from Ovid, Sappho, Shakespeare, the ancient Greeks, the Romans, or from the Kama Sutra. But love is a theme that should be celebrated with freshness. — Salil Jha

Never despair of a child. The one you weep the most for at the mercy-seat may fill your heart with the sweetest joys. — Theodore L. Cuyler

]
]you will remember
]for we in our youth
did these things

yes many and beautiful things
]
]
] — Sappho

You write poetry?" Klaus asked.
He had read a lot about poets but had never met one.
"Just a little bit," Isadora said modestly. "I write poems down in this notebook. It's an interest of mine."
"Sappho!" Sunny shrieked, which meant something like, "I'd be very pleased to hear a poem of yours! — Lemony Snicket

In Poetry class, Professor Sappho teaches us how to compose love ballads. She's a swell teacher and all but I'm not sure I understand her. She's always going on and on about her weekend trips with the other goddesses to the island of Lesbos. — Tai

Nocturne

Midnight. The moon
has set, and the Pleiades.
The hours pass
and pass, yet still I lie alone.

Sappho — Sherod Santos

The Unchanging
Sun-swept beaches with a light wind blowing
From the immense blue circle of the sea,
And the soft thunder where long waves whiten
These were the same for Sappho as for me.
Two thousand years - much has gone by forever,
Change takes the gods and ships and speech of men
But here on the beaches that time passes over
The heart aches now as then. — Sara Teasdale

He's a reminder of what I want to feel everyday, whether it's with him or on my own. He's taught me that who I am when I'm with him feels too good to sacrifice for the approval of everyone else. The way I dress, the guys I talk to, the games I play... it's all plastic, and when I'm with him, I'm gold. — Penelope Douglas

Their heart grew cold
they let their wings down — Sappho

Eros the melter of limbs (now again) stirs me -
sweetbitter unmanageable creature who steals in — Sappho