Anne Sexton Quotes - Page 11

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• I suffer for birds and fireflies but not frogs, she said, and threw him across the room. Kaboom! Like a genie out of a samovar, a handsome prince arose in the corner of the bedroom.

  Anne Sexton

  Firefly, Bird, Suffering

  Anne Sexton, Diane Wood Middlebrook, Diana Hume George (2000). “Selected Poems of Anne Sexton”, p.168, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  4 Copy quote

• I lay there silently, hoarding my small dignity. I did not ask about the gate or the closet. I did not question the bedtime ritual where, on the cold bathroom tiles, I was spread out daily and examined for flaws. I did not know that my bones, those solids, those pieces of sculpture would not splinter.

  Anne Sexton

  Hoarding, Sculpture, Splinters

  4 Copy quote

• And tonight our skin, our bones, that have survived our fathers, will meet, delicate in the hold, fastened together in an intricate lock. Then one of us will shout, "My need is more desperate!" and I will eat you slowly with kisses even though the killer in you has gotten out.

  Anne Sexton

  Father, Kissing, Skins

  Anne Sexton (1999). “Love Poems”, p.20, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• I find now, swallowing one teaspoon of pain, that it drops downward to the past where it mixes with last year’s cupful and downward into a decade’s quart and downward into a lifetime’s ocean. I alternate treading water and deadman’s float.

  Anne Sexton

  Pain, Ocean, Past

  Anne Sexton (1976). “45 Mercy Street”, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH)

  8 Copy quote

• I tell you what you’ll never really know: all the medical hypothesis that explained my brain will never be as true as these struck leaves letting go.

  Anne Sexton

  Letting Go, Brain, Medical

  Anne Sexton, Diane Wood Middlebrook, Diana Hume George (2000). “Selected Poems of Anne Sexton”, p.28, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  5 Copy quote

• I love you. You are closest to my heart, closer than any other human being. You are my extension. You are my prayer. You are my belief in God. For better or worse you inherit me.

  Anne Sexton

  Love, Prayer, Heart

  Anne Sexton, Linda Gray Sexton, Lois Ames (2004). “Anne Sexton: A Self-portrait in Letters”, p.342, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  4 Copy quote

• After a disaster strikes, it can be very devastating and very challenging. You're going to need a lot of strength and energy, and the American Red Cross suggests you go for the high protein items.

  Anne Sexton

  Challenges, Energy, Needs

  9 Copy quote

• I was spread out dailyand examined for flaws.

  Anne Sexton

  Flaws, Spread

  5 Copy quote

• Here in the hospital, I say,that is not my body, not my body.I am not here for the doctorsto read like a recipe.

  Anne Sexton

  Body, Recipes, Hospitals

  Anne Sexton, “August 17th”

  4 Copy quote

• I wonder if the artist ever lives his life--he is so busy recreating it.

  Anne Sexton

  Artist, Wonder, Busy

  Anne Sexton, Webster's II Dictionaries, Lois Ames (1979). “Anne Sexton: A Self Portrait in Letters”, Mariner Books

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• With this pen I take in hand my selves
  and with these dead disciples I will grapple.
  Though rain curses the window
  let the poem be made.

  Anne Sexton

  Rain, Self, Hands

  5 Copy quote

• I said, the poets are there
  I hear them singing and lying
  around their round table
  and around me still.

  Anne Sexton

  Lying, Poetry, Singing

  8 Copy quote

• For forty days, for forty nights
  Jesus put one foot in front of the other
  and the man he carried,
  if it was a man,
  became heavier and heavier.

  Anne Sexton

  God, Jesus, Night

  4 Copy quote

• I who was a house full of bowel movement,
  I who was a defaced altar,
  I who wanted to crawl toward God
  could not move nor eat bread.

  Anne Sexton

  God, Moving, House

  Anne Sexton (1975). “The Awful Rowing Toward God”, Boston : Houghton Mifflin

  4 Copy quote

• True. There is
  a beautiful Jesus.
  He is frozen to his bones like a chunk of beef.
  How desperately he wanted to pull his arms in!
  How desperately I touch his vertical and horizontal axes!
  But I can't. Need is not quite belief.

  Anne Sexton

  Beautiful, God, Jesus

  Anne Sexton, Diane Wood Middlebrook, Diana Hume George (2000). “Selected Poems of Anne Sexton”, p.57, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  4 Copy quote

• All the oxygen of the world was in them.
  All the feet of the babies of the world were in them.
  All the crotches of the angels of the world were in them.
  All the morning kisses of Philadelphia were in them.

  Anne Sexton

  Happiness, Baby, Morning

  Anne Sexton (1978). “Words for Dr. Y.: uncollected poems with three stories”, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH)

  4 Copy quote

• Every time I get happy
  the Nana-hex comes through.
  Birds turn into plumber's tools,
  a sonnet turns into a dirty joke,
  a wind turns into a tracheotomy,
  a boat turns into a corpse.

  Anne Sexton

  Happiness, Depression, Dirty

  4 Copy quote

• we do not explain my husband's insane abuse
  and we do not say why your wild-haired wife has fled
  or that my father opened like a walnut and then was dead.
  Your palms fold over me like knees. Love is the only use.

  Anne Sexton

  Family, Husband, Father

  Anne Sexton (1964). “Selected poems”

  6 Copy quote

• I would sell my life to avoid
  the pain that begins in the crib
  with its bars or perhaps
  with your first breath
  when the planets drill
  your future into you.

  Anne Sexton

  Life, Pain, Bars

  Anne Sexton (1976). “45 Mercy Street”, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH)

  5 Copy quote

• I love the word warm.
  It is almost unbearable--
  so moist and breathlike.

  Anne Sexton

  Experience, Unbearable, Warm

  Anne Sexton (1978). “Words for Dr. Y.: uncollected poems with three stories”, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH)

  4 Copy quote

• The Saints come,
  as human as a mouth,
  with a bag of God in their backs,
  like a hunchback,
  they come,
  they come marching in.

  Anne Sexton

  Saint, Bags, Mouths

  4 Copy quote

• There is joy
  in all:
  in the hair I brush each morning,
  in the Cannon towel, newly washed,
  that I rub my body with each morning.

  Anne Sexton

  Morning, Hair, Joy

  4 Copy quote

• Let there be seasons so that our tongues will be rich in asparagus and limes.

  Anne Sexton

  Asparagus, Tongue, Rich

  Anne Sexton, Diane Wood Middlebrook, Diana Hume George (2000). “Selected Poems of Anne Sexton”, p.219, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  15 Copy quote

• Oh sharp diamond, my mother!
  I could not count the cost
  of all your faces, your moods
  that present that I lost.
  Sweet girl, my deathbed,
  my jewel-fingered lady...

  Anne Sexton

  Girl, Mother, Sweet

  Anne Sexton, “Christmas Eve”

  4 Copy quote

• Poor thing.
  To die and never see Brooklyn.

  Anne Sexton

  Brooklyn, Poor, Dies

  Anne Sexton (2001). “Transformations”, p.18, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  4 Copy quote

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