Quotes from Sylvia Plath

People were made of nothing so much as dust, and I couldn't see that doctoring all that dust was a bit better than writing poems people would remember and repeat to themselves when they were unhappy or sick and couldn't sleep.

I am the magician's girl who does not flinch.

What I didn't say was that each time I picked up a German dictionary or a German book, the very sight of those dense, black, barbed-wire letters made my mind shut like a clam.

If Doctor Nolan asked me for the matches, I would say that I'd thought they were made of candy and had eaten them.

One thing, I try to be honest. And what is revealed is often rather hideously unflattering.

The reason I hadn't washed my clothes or my hair was because it seemed so silly. (...) It seemed silly to wash one day when I would only have to wash it again the next. It made me tired just to think of it. I wanted to do everything once and for all and be through with it.

For I must get back my soul from you; I am killing my flesh without it.

A man's world is different from a woman's world and a man's emotions are different from a woman's emotions and only marriage can bring the two different sets of emotions together properly.

I'm not afraid of being lost. We all wander off from time to time. It's the fear of never quite finding myself that keeps me up at night.

Beached under the spumy blooms, we lie Sea-sick and fever-dry. --from Withsun, written 14 February 1961

God, how I ricochet between certainties and doubts.

Be stoic when necessary and write-you have seen a lot, felt deeply, and your problems are universal enough to be made meaningful-WRITE.

A skeptic, I would ask for consistency first of all.

if a man chooses to be promiscuous, he may still turn up his nose at promiscuity. He may still demand a woman be faithful to him, to save him from his own lust. But women have lust, too. Why should they be relegated to the position of custodian of emotions, watcher of the infants, feeder of soul,body and pride of man?

It seems to me more than ever that I am a victim of introspection. If I have not the power to put myself in the place of other people, but must be continually burrowing inward, I shall never be the magnanimous creative person I wish to be. Yet I am hypnotized by the workings of the individual, alone, and am continually using myself as a specimen. I am possessive about time alone...

This is my first snow at Smith. It is like any other snow, but from a different window, and there lies the singular charm of it.

Your security and love of life don't depend on the presence of another, but only on yourself, your chosen work, and your developing identity. Then you can safely choose to enrich your life by marrying another person, and not, as e e cummings says, until.

I wondered at what point in space the silly, sham blue of the sky turned black.

I must bridge the gap between adolescent glitter and mature glow

I felt sorry when I came to the last page. I wanted to crawl in between those black lines of print the way you crawl through a fence.

I have let things slip, a thirty-year~old cargo boat Stubbornly hanging on to my name and address.

The trouble was, I hated the idea of serving men in any way. I wanted to dictate my own thrilling letters.

But they know. They all know. And what am I against so many…?

What I hate is the thought of being under a man's thumb, I had told Doctor Nolan. A man doesn't have a worry in the world, while I've got a baby hanging over my head like a big stick, to keep me in line.