I think my poems immediately come out of the sensuous and emotional experiences I have, but I must say I cannot sympathise with these cries from the heart that are informed by nothing except a needle or a knife, or whatever it is. Sylvia Plath More Quotes by Sylvia Plath More Quotes From Sylvia Plath Spiderlike, I spin mirrors, Loyal to my image. Sylvia Plath loyal mirrors Beached under the spumy blooms, we lie Sea-sick and fever-dry. Sylvia Plath sick sea lying I felt wise and cynical as all hell. Sylvia Plath cynical hell wise And I sit here without identity: faceless. My head aches. Sylvia Plath faceless ache identity Yes, there is joy, fulfillment and companionship but the loneliness of the soul in its appalling self-consciousness is horrible and overpowering. Sylvia Plath loneliness self joy Poetry, I feel, is a tyrannical discipline. You've got to go so far, so fast, in such a small space, that you've got to burn away all the peripherals. Sylvia Plath discipline space feels You smile. No, it is not fatal. Sylvia Plath I smile, now, thinking: we all like to think we are important enough to need psychiatrists Sylvia Plath important needs thinking I was supposed to be having the time of my life. Sylvia Plath bell-jar time-of-my-life supposed-to-be I am solitary as grass. What is it I miss? Shall I ever find it, whatever it is? Sylvia Plath solitary missing grass The thing about writing is not to talk, but to do it; no matter how bad or even mediocre it is, the process and production is the thing, not the sitting and theorizing about how one should write ideally, or how well one could write if one really wanted to or had the time. Sylvia Plath sitting matter writing There is more than one good way to drown. Sylvia Plath good-way way I didn’t want any flowers, I only wanted to lie with my hands turned up and be utterly empty. How free it is, you have no idea how free. Sylvia Plath flower lying hands Hurl yourself at goals above your head and bear the lacerations that come when you slip and make a fool of yourself. Try always, as long as you have breath in your body, to take the hard way–and work, work, work to build yourself into a rich, continually evolving entity. Sylvia Plath goal trying long I cannot life for life itself: but for the words which stay the flux. My life, I feel, will not be lived until there are books and stories which relive it perpetually in time. I forget too easily how it was, and shrink to the horror of the here and now, with no past and no future. Writing breaks open the vaults of the dead and the skies behind which the prophesying angels hide. The mind makes and makes, spinning its web. Sylvia Plath angel writing book Why am I obsessed with the idea I can justify myself by getting manuscripts published? Is it an escape-an excuse for any social failure-so I can say "No, I don't go out for many extracurricular activities, but I spend a lot of time writing." Sylvia Plath excuse writing ideas I want to be able to sleep in an open field, to travel west, to walk freely at night. Sylvia Plath want sleep night So, now I shall talk every night. To myself. To the moon. I shall walk, as I did tonight, jealous of my loneliness, in the blue-silver of the cold moon, shining brilliantly on the drifts of fresh-fallen snow, with the myriad sparkles. I talk to myself and look at the dark trees, blessedly neutral. So much easier than facing people, than having to look happy, invulnerable, clever. Sylvia Plath jealous loneliness clever See, the darkness is leaking from the cracks. I cannot contain it. I cannot contain my life. Sylvia Plath cracks darkness I had always imagined myself hitching up on to my elbows on the delivery table after it was all over - dead white, of course, with no makeup and from the awful ordeal, but smiling and radiant, with my hair down to my waist, and reaching out for my first little squirmy child and saying its name, whatever it was. Sylvia Plath makeup hair children
