A Quote by – Edna St. Vincent Millay

Topic of this Quote:

Author Name:

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Born As:

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Other Names:

Pseudonym Nancy Boyd

Born:

22 Feb 1892

Died:

19 Oct 1950 
From an October 1930 letter to Arthur Davison Ficke, as variously described by her biographers, e.g.:

Life was not so much "one damn thing after another" as "one damn thing over and over".

As paraphrased ("she had sent [...] a half-comic note, complaining that...") with quoted phrases in Jean Gould, The Poet and Her Book: A Biography of Edna St. Vincent Millay (1969), p. 198
Life isn't one thing after another, it's the same thing over and over

As paraphrased ("she writes that...") and apparently Bowlderized in Miriam Gurko, Restless spirit: the life of Edna St. Vincent Millay - 1962, 

It was not true that life is one damn thing after another — it was one damn thing over and over

As paraphrased ("Edna had written [...] that...") in Joan Dash, A Life of One's Own: Three Gifted Women and the Men they Married - 1973

The paraphrase by Dash appears to be the origin of later popularly attributed variants, e.g.:
It is not true that life is one damn thing after another. It's the same damn thing over and over.

As attributed without citation in Psychoanalysis Today: A Case Book - 1991 by Elizabeth Thorne and Shirley Herscovitch Schaye.

It is not true that life is one damn thing after another. It's the same damn thing over and over again.
As attributed without citation in The Last Word: A Treasury of Women's Quotes - 1992 by Carolyn Warner