Anne Sexton Quotes - Page 11

Quotes about:

• There is no word for time.
  Today we will
  not think to number another summer
  or watch its white bird into the ground.

  Anne Sexton

  Summer, Time, Thinking

  Anne Sexton, “The Road Back”

  4 Copy quote

• So I won't hang around in my hospital shift,
  repeating The Black Mass and all of it.
  I say Live, Live because of the sun,
  the dream, the excitable gift.

  Anne Sexton

  Life, Dream, Black

  Anne Sexton, Diane Wood Middlebrook, Diana Hume George (2000). “Selected Poems of Anne Sexton”, p.119, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  5 Copy quote

• I am out of practice at living.
  You are as brave as a motorcycle.

  Anne Sexton

  Life, Practice, Brave

  Anne Sexton, Diane Wood Middlebrook, Diana Hume George (2000). “Selected Poems of Anne Sexton”, p.258, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  9 Copy quote

• The man inside of woman ties a knot so that they will never again be separate.

  Anne Sexton

  Men, Ties, Knots

  Anne Sexton, Diane Wood Middlebrook, Diana Hume George (2000). “Selected Poems of Anne Sexton”, p.233, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  5 Copy quote

• There once was a miller with a daughter as lovely as a grape. He told the king that she could spin gold out of common straw. The king summoned the girl and locked her in a room full of straw and told her to spin it into gold or she would die like a criminal. Poor grape with no one to pick. Luscious and round and sleek. Poor thing. To die and never see Brooklyn. (Rumpelstiltskin)

  Anne Sexton

  Girl, Daughter, Kings

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

  4 Copy quote

• Put your mouthful of words away and come with me to watch the lilies open in such a field, growing there like yachts, slowly steering their petals without nurses or clocks.

  Anne Sexton

  Nurse, Watches, Growing

  Anne Sexton (1964). “Selected poems”

  5 Copy quote

• No matter whose bed you die in
  the bed will be yours
  for your voyage
  onto the surgical andiron
  of God.

  Anne Sexton

  Faith, Bed, Matter

  5 Copy quote

• For I could not read or speak and on the long nights I could not turn the moon off or count the lights of cars across the ceiling.

  Anne Sexton

  Moon, Night, Light

  Anne Sexton, Diane Wood Middlebrook, Diana Hume George (2000). “Selected Poems of Anne Sexton”, p.220, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  5 Copy quote

• The Witch's Life" When I was a child there was an old woman in our neighborhood whom we called The Witch. All day she peered from her second story window from behind the wrinkled curtains and sometimes she would open the window and yell: Get out of my life! She had hair like kelp and a voice like a boulder. I think of her sometimes now and wonder if I am becoming her.

  Anne Sexton

  Children, Thinking, Hair

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

  8 Copy quote

• O yellow eye,
  let me be sick with your heat,
  let me be feverish and frowning.

  Anne Sexton

  Eye, Sunshine, Yellow

  53 Copy quote

• Daylight is nobody's friend. God comes in like a landlord and flashes on his brassy lamp.

  Anne Sexton

  Morning, Lamps, Daylight

  Anne Sexton (1999). “Love Poems”, p.30, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  5 Copy quote

• Women tell time by the body. They are like clocks. They are always fastened to the earth, listening for its small animal noises.

  Anne Sexton

  Time, Animal, Listening

  5 Copy quote

• Our children tremble in their teen-age cribs,
  whirling off on a thumb or a motorcycle.

  Anne Sexton

  Children, Maturity, Motorcycle

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

  13 Copy quote

• Suicides have a special language. Like carpenters they want to know which tools. They never ask why build.

  Anne Sexton

  Suicide, Special, Tools

  "Wanting to Die" l. 7 (1966)

  5 Copy quote

• Yes I try to kill myself in small amounts, an innocuous occupation. Actually I'm hung up on it.

  Anne Sexton

  Suicide, Self Harm, Trying

  Anne Sexton, “The Addict”

  14 Copy quote

• Well, one gets out of bed and the planets don't always hiss or muck up the day, each day.

  Anne Sexton

  Astrology, Bed, Each Day

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

  9 Copy quote

• I have been cut in two.

  Anne Sexton

  Cutting, Two, Mental Health

  Anne Sexton, Diane Wood Middlebrook, Diana Hume George (2000). “Selected Poems of Anne Sexton”, p.92, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  4 Copy quote

• Oh, darling, let your body in, let it tie you in, in comfort.

  Anne Sexton

  Get Well, Ties, Comfort

  Anne Sexton, Diane Wood Middlebrook, Diana Hume George (2000). “Selected Poems of Anne Sexton”, p.101, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  4 Copy quote

• My objects dream and wear new costumes,
  compelled to, it seems, by all the words in my hands
  and the sea that bangs in my throat.

  Anne Sexton

  Dream, Hands, Sea

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

  4 Copy quote

• My heart is on a budget.
  It keeps me on the brink.

  Anne Sexton

  Heart, My Heart, Budgets

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

  5 Copy quote

• Then God spoke to me and said:
  People say only good things about Christmas.
  If they want to say something bad,
  they whisper.

  Anne Sexton

  Christmas, God, Jesus

  Anne Sexton, Diane Wood Middlebrook, Diana Hume George (2000). “Selected Poems of Anne Sexton”, p.200, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  4 Copy quote

• Please God, we're all right here. Please leave us alone.
  Don't send death in his fat red suit and his ho-ho baritone.

  Anne Sexton

  God, Contentment, Red

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

  4 Copy quote

• I tied down time with a rope
  but it came back.
  Then
  I put my head in a death bowl
  and my eyes shut up like clams.
  They didn't come back.

  Anne Sexton

  Time, Eye, Rope

  6 Copy quote

• I want to kiss God on His nose and watch Him sneeze
  and so do you.
  Not out of disrespect.
  Out of pique.
  Out of a man-to-man thing.

  Anne Sexton

  God, Jesus, Kissing

  4 Copy quote

• The body is a damn hard thing to kill.

  Anne Sexton

  Suicidal, Body, Damn

  Anne Sexton (1999). “Love Poems”, p.24, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  4 Copy quote

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