Anne Sexton Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

• I am younger each year at the first snow. When I see it, suddenly, in the air, all little and white and moving;
  then I am in love again and very young and I believe everything.

  Anne Sexton

  Believe, Moving, Air

  Anne Sexton, Linda Gray Sexton, Lois Ames (2004). “Anne Sexton: A Self-portrait in Letters”, p.45, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  28 Copy quote

• Only my books anoint me, and a few friends, those who reach into my veins.

  Anne Sexton

  Book, Veins, Few Friends

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

  29 Copy quote

• I'm hunting for the truth. It might be a kind of poetic truth, and not just a factual one, because behind everything that happens to you, there is another truth, a secret life.

  Anne Sexton

  Hunting, Secret, Might

  19 Copy quote

• Those moments before a poem comes, when the heightened awareness comes over you, and you realize a poem is buried there somewhere, you prepare yourself. I run around, you know, kind of skipping around the house, marvelous elation. It’s as though I could fly.

  Anne Sexton

  Running, House, Over You

  12 Copy quote

• In a dream you are never eighty.

  Anne Sexton

  Dream, Age, Youth

  "Old" l. 18 (1962)

  9 Copy quote

• It doesn't matter who my father was; it matters who I remember he was.

  Anne Sexton

  Death, Daughter, Fathers Day

  "A Small Journal" by Anne Sexton, 1974.

  57 Copy quote

• I am in my own mind.
  I am locked in the wrong house.

  Anne Sexton

  House, Mind, My Own

  Anne Sexton, Diane Wood Middlebrook, Diana Hume George (2000). “Selected Poems of Anne Sexton”, p.93, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  8 Copy quote

• Rocks crumble, make new forms,
  oceans move the continents,
  mountains rise up and down like ghosts
  yet all is natural, all is change.

  Anne Sexton

  Change, Nature, Ocean

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

  12 Copy quote

• You must be a poet,
  a lady of evil luck
  desiring to be what you are not,
  longing to be
  what you can only visit.

  Anne Sexton

  Evil, Poetry, Luck

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

  19 Copy quote

• Sometimes I fly like an eagle but with the wings of a wren

  Anne Sexton

  Life, Eagles, Wings

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

  20 Copy quote

• I am not lazy.
  I am on the amphetamine of the soul.
  I am, each day,
  typing out the God
  my typewriter believes in.

  Anne Sexton

  Believe, Typewriters, Poetry

  Anne Sexton, Diane Wood Middlebrook, Diana Hume George (2000). “Selected Poems of Anne Sexton”, p.238, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  13 Copy quote

• God is only mocked by believers.

  Anne Sexton

  Believer

  Anne Sexton, Linda Gray Sexton, Lois Ames (2004). “Anne Sexton: A Self-portrait in Letters”, p.137, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  6 Copy quote

• The snow has quietness in it; no songs, no smells, no shouts or traffic. When I speak my own voice shocks me.

  Anne Sexton

  Song, Voice, Smell

  Anne Sexton (1964). “Selected poems”

  18 Copy quote

• ...became a woman who learned her own skin and dug into her soul and found it full.

  Anne Sexton

  Soul, Skins, Found

  26 Copy quote

• All I wanted was a little piece of life, to be married, to have children.... I was trying my damnedest to lead a conventional life, for that was how I was brought up, and it was what my husband wanted of me. But one can't build little white picket fences to keep the nightmares out.

  Anne Sexton

  Children, Husband, White

  36 Copy quote

• Saints have no moderation, nor do poets, just exuberance.

  Anne Sexton

  Saint, Moderation, Poet

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

  89 Copy quote

• My ideas are a curse.
  They spring from a radical discontent
  with the awful order of things.
  I play clown. I play carpenter. I play nurse.
  I play witch.

  Anne Sexton

  Inspirational, Spring, Order

  Anne Sexton, Diane Wood Middlebrook, Diana Hume George (2000). “Selected Poems of Anne Sexton”, p.263, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  10 Copy quote

• Cinderella and the prince
  lived, they say, happily ever after,
  like two dolls in a museum case
  never bothered by diapers or dust,
  never arguing over the timing of an egg,
  never telling the same story twice.

  Anne Sexton

  Happiness, Marriage, Museums

  Anne Sexton (2001). “Transformations”, p.56, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  28 Copy quote

• I'm the crazy one who thinks that words reach people.

  Anne Sexton

  Crazy, Thinking, People

  Anne Sexton, Linda Gray Sexton, Lois Ames (2004). “Anne Sexton: A Self-portrait in Letters”, p.48, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  20 Copy quote

• Poetry is my life, my postmark, my hands, my kitchen, my face.

  Anne Sexton

  Hands, Kitchen, Faces

  11 Copy quote

• I am torn in two
  but I will conquer myself.

  Anne Sexton

  Self, Two, Conquer

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

  16 Copy quote

• We are America.
  We are the coffin fillers.
  We are the grocers of death.
  We pack them in crates like cauliflowers.

  Anne Sexton

  America, United States, Coffins

  Anne Sexton, “The Firebombers”

  14 Copy quote

• ... a starving man doesn't ask what the meal is.

  Anne Sexton

  Men, Meals, Hunger

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

  15 Copy quote

• Images are the heart of poetry ... You're not a poet without imagery.

  Anne Sexton

  Heart, Poet, Imagery

  10 Copy quote

• I am stuffing your mouth with your promises and watching you vomit them out upon my face.

  Anne Sexton

  Truth, Promise, Mouths

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

  16 Copy quote

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