Anne Sexton Quotes - Page 12

Quotes about:

• I think of myself as writing for one person, that one perfect reader who understands and loves.

  Anne Sexton

  Writing, Thinking, Perfect

  5 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• Let there be a heaven so that man may outlive his grasses.

  Anne Sexton

  Men, Afterlife, Heaven

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

  4 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

• Of course
  the New Testament is very small.
  Its mouth opens four times
  as out-of-date as a prehistoric monster,
  yet somehow man-made.

  Anne Sexton

  Bible, Men, Monsters

  Anne Sexton, Diane Wood Middlebrook, Diana Hume George (2000). “Selected Poems of Anne Sexton”, p.85, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  4 Copy quote

• My safe, safe psychosis is broken.
  It was hard.
  It was made of stone.
  It covered my face like a mask.
  But it has cracked.

  Anne Sexton

  Psychosis, Broken, Safe

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

  8 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

• 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

• 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

• Blind with love, my daughter
  has cried nightly for horses,
  those long-necked marchers and churners
  that she has mastered, any and all,
  reigning them in like a circus hand.

  Anne Sexton

  Daughter, Horse, Hands

  Anne Sexton, Diane Wood Middlebrook, Diana Hume George (2000). “Selected Poems of Anne Sexton”, p.112, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  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

• 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

• To die whole,
  riddled with nothing
  but desire for it,
  is like breakfast
  after love.

  Anne Sexton

  Desire, Satisfaction, Breakfast

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

  4 Copy quote

• All considerations
  for these human remains!
  They must have an escort!
  They are classified!

  Anne Sexton

  War, Consideration, Humans

  Anne Sexton (1999). “Love Poems”, p.54, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  4 Copy quote

• Poets are sitting in my kitchen.
  Why do these poets lie?
  Why do children get children and
  Did you hear what it said?

  Anne Sexton

  Children, Lying, Poetry

  Anne Sexton, “Portrait Of An Old Woman On The College Tavern Wall”

  5 Copy quote

• When someone kisses someone or flushes the toilet
  it is my other who sits in a ball and cries.
  My other beats a tin drum in my heart.
  My other hangs up laundry as I try to sleep.
  My other cries and cries and cries
  when I put on a cocktail dress.

  Anne Sexton

  Sleep, Heart, Kissing

  Anne Sexton, “The Other”

  4 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

• being sixteen in the pants I died full of questions

  Anne Sexton

  Sixteen, Pants, Died

  5 Copy quote

• I have a black look I do not
  like. It is a mask I try on.
  I migrate toward it and its frog
  sits on my lips and defecates.

  Anne Sexton

  Anger, Black, Trying

  Anne Sexton, “Again And Again And Again”

  7 Copy quote

• The town is silent. The night boils with eleven stars.
  Oh starry starry night! This is how
  I want to die.

  Anne Sexton

  Stars, Night, Want

  Anne Sexton, Diane Wood Middlebrook, Diana Hume George (2000). “Selected Poems of Anne Sexton”, p.49, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  7 Copy quote

• 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

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