“We were not to be one hundred per cent happy. No one ever is.” — Edgar A. Guest | V2Melody

“We were not to be one hundred per cent happy. No one ever is.”

Acknowledging that sorrow remains an unavoidable part of even a fortunate life · Prose memoir, Making the House a Home, 1922

About Edgar A. Guest

Edgar A. Guest

20 August 1881–5 August 1959

Edgar Albert Guest was born in Birmingham, England, on 20 August 1881, and died in Detroit, Michigan, on 5 August 1959, fifteen days before his seventy-eighth birthday. During much of his long life, he was among the most familiar poets in the United States. His name appeared daily in newspapers, his verses were…

More by Edgar A. Guest

Poems by Edgar A. Guest

More remarks by Edgar A. Guest

“The home is not yet completed. We still cherish our dreams of what it is to be.”

Treating home and family life as continuing works shaped by hope and change · Prose memoir, Making the House a Home, 1922

“I learned how much braver the woman has to be than the man.”

Reflecting on the different burdens of grief he observed within domestic life · Prose memoir, Making the House a Home, 1922

“if something happens to me, it must happen to other people”

Expressing his belief that ordinary personal experience can speak to a wide audience · Interview quoted in Time, 1951