I must say that I am not very genteel and I feel that gentility has a stranglehold: the neatness, the wonderful tidiness, which is so evident everywhere in England is perhaps more dangerous than it would appear on the surface. Sylvia Plath More Quotes by Sylvia Plath More Quotes From Sylvia Plath I thought the most beautiful thing in the world must be shadow, the million moving shapes and cul-de-sacs of shadow. There was shadow in bureau drawers and closets and suitcases, and shadow under houses and trees and stones, and shadow at the back of people's eyes and smiles, and shadow, miles and miles and miles of it, on the night side of the earth. Sylvia Plath depression beautiful moving I dream too much, work too little. Sylvia Plath too-much dream littles If the body is a temple, then tattoos are its stained glass windows. Sylvia Plath tattoo glasses body The one thing I was good at was winning scholarships and prizes, and that era was coming to an end. Sylvia Plath bell-jar eras winning I have this demon who wants me to run away screaming if I am going to be flawed, fallible. It wants me to think I'm so good I must be perfect. Or nothing. I am, on the contrary, something: a being who gets tired, has shyness to fight, has more trouble than most facing people easily. Sylvia Plath tired fighting running The sheets grow heavy as a lecher's kiss. Sylvia Plath sheets heavy kissing It won't happen yet, Ellen mused, mashing cooked carrots for Jill's lunch. Breakups seldom do. It will unfold slowly, one little tell-tale symptom after another like some awful, hellish flower. Sylvia Plath sad breakup flower I've eaten a bag of Green apples. Boarded the train, there's no getting off Sylvia Plath bags apples green There is a certain clinical satisfaction in seeing just how bad things can get. Sylvia Plath clinicals certain satisfaction We must be moving, working, making dreams to run toward; the poverty of life without dreams is too horrible to imagine. Sylvia Plath dream running moving Winter is for women The woman still at her knitting, At the cradle of Spanish walnut, Her body a bulb in the cold and too dumb to think. Sylvia Plath knitting winter thinking I am afraid of getting married. Spare me from cooking three meals a dayspare me from the relentless cage of routine and rote. Sylvia Plath routine meals cooking For me, poetry is an evasion of the real job of writing prose. Sylvia Plath real writing jobs Ironically, Henry James' biography comforts me & I long to make known to him his posthumous reputation he wrote, in pain, gave all his life (which is more than I could think of doing I have Ted, will have children but few friends) & the critics insulted & mocked him, readers didn't read him. Sylvia Plath pain children thinking If I rest, if I think inward, I go mad. Sylvia Plath inward mad thinking If neurotic is wanting two mutually exclusive things at one and the same time, then I'm neurotic as hell. Sylvia Plath neurosis hell two What I want back is what I was Before the bed, before the knife, Before the brooch-pin and the salve Fixed me in this parenthesis; Horses fluent in the wind, A place, a time gone out of mind. Sylvia Plath knives horse wind When I fell out of the light, I entered The stomach of indifference, the wordless cupboard. Sylvia Plath numbness emptiness light If I have a dry spell ... I wait and live harder, eyes, ears, and heart open, and when the productive time comes, it is that much richer. Sylvia Plath eye waiting heart As from a star I saw, coldly and soberly, the separateness of everything. I felt the wall of my skin; I am I. That stone is a stone. My beautiful fusion with the things of this world was over. Sylvia Plath wall stars beautiful
