Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath

Poet, Novelist

Sylvia Plath was an American poet and novelist, known for her confessional style and her impactful work, 'The Bell Jar'.

Thinking Writing People Men Heart Inspirational
Born
October 27, 1932
Died
February 11, 1963
Quotes
610
Rank
#23

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Sylvia Plath quotes (page 7 of 31)

610 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.

Sylvia Plath Poet, Novelist
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"One night she hid the pink cotton scarf from her raincoat in the pillowcase when the nurse came around to lock up her drawers and closets for the night. In the dark she had made a loop and tried to pull it tight around her throat. But always just as the air stopped coming and she felt the rushing grow louder in her ears, her hands would slacken and let go, and she would lie there panting for breath, cursing the dumb instinct in her body that fought to go on living"

Letting Go Suicide Lying
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Sylvia Plath Poet, Novelist
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"But life is long. And it is the long run that balances the short flare of interest and passion."

Life Running Passion
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"I do not know who I am, where I am going - and I am the one who has to decide the answers to these hideous questions."

Who I Am Answers Hideous
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"I have stitched life into me like a rare organ"

Live By Organs
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"Nothing is real except the present, and already, I feel the weight of centuries smothering me. Some girl a hundred years ago once lived as I do. And she is dead. I am the present, but I know I, too, will pass. The high moment, the burning flash, come and are gone, continuous quicksand. And I don’t want to die."

Girl Real Years
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"I find myself absolutely fulfilled when I have written a poem, when I'm writing one. Having written one, then you fall away very rapidly from having been a poet to becoming a sort of poet in rest, which isn't the same thing at all. But I think the actual experience of writing a poem is a magnificent one."

Fall Writing Thinking
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"It was like the first time i saw a cadaver. For weeks afterward the cadavers head, or what was left of it - floated up behind my eggs and bacon at breakfast and in the face of Buddy Willard, who was responsible for my seeing it in the first place, and pretty soon I felt as though I were carrying that cadavers head around with me on a string, like some black, noseless balloon stinking of vinegar."

Eggs Black Cadavers
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"When they asked some old Roman philosopher or other how he wanted to die, he said he would open his veins in a warm bath. I thought it would be easy, lying in the tup and seeing the redness flower from my wrists, flush after flush through the clear water, till I sank into sleep under a surface gaudy as poppies."

Lying Flower Sleep
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"Writing, then, was a substitute for myself: if you don't love me, love my writing & love me for my writing. It is also much more: a way of ordering and reordering the chaos of experience."

Writing Way Chaos
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"I have never found anybody who could stand to accept the daily demonstrative love I feel in me, and give back as good as I give."

Love Inspirational Acceptance
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"I love people. Everybody. I love them, I think, as a stamp collector loves his collection. Every story, every incident, every bit of conversation is raw material for me."

Thinking People Feminism
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"I want so obviously, so desperately to be loved, and to be capable of love."

Want Capable
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"Good to know that if I ever need attention all I have to do is die."

Needs Attention Knows
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"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead; I lift my eyes and all is born again."

Spring Eye Perspective
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"I want to write because I have the urge to excel in one medium of translation and expression of life. I can't be satisfied with the colossal job of merely living. Oh, no, I must order life in sonnets and sestinas and provide a verbal reflector for my 60-watt lighted head."

Jobs Writing Expression
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