Home / Authors / Anne Sexton

Anne Sexton Quotes

Poet

Anne Sexton was an American poet known for her confessional and autobiographical poetry. Her works delved deeply into personal pain, family relationships, and social issues, profoundly influencing 20th-century poetry.

Filter quotes by topic

All Poetry Heart Knows Ifs White God Thinking Poet Men Body Children Life Want Mouths Needs Writing Eye My Heart Sea Born

Famous Anne Sexton Quotes

“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.”

Ifs Men God Night Religion Jesus Feet Fronts He Man Forty

Author:Anne Sexton

“Let the light be called Day so that men may grow corn or take busses.”

Men May Light Grows Creation Corn

Book:Selected Poems of Anne Sexton

Source: Selected Poems of Anne Sexton

“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.”

Men Want God Jesus Christ Watches Kissing Jesus Christ Noses Disrespect Pique

Author:Anne Sexton

“Man is a bird full of mud, I say aloud. And death looks on with a casual eye and scratches his anus.”

Men Looks Eye Mankind Bird Mud Scratches Casual Anus

Book:The Awful Rowing Toward God

Source: The Awful Rowing Toward God

“Inside many of us is a small old man who wants to get out.”

Men Want Age Old Age Old Man

Book:Transformations

Source: Transformations

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

Men May Heaven Grass Afterlife

Book:Selected Poems of Anne Sexton

Source: Selected Poems of Anne Sexton

“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 Its mouth opens four times as out-of-date as a prehistoric monster, yet somehow man-made.”

Men Made Courses Four Mouths Bible Monsters Testament New Testament Prehistoric

Book:Selected Poems of Anne Sexton

Source: Selected Poems of Anne Sexton

“Love? Be it man. Be it woman. It must be a wave you want to glide in on, give your body to it, give your laugh to it, give, when the gravelly sand takes you, your tears to the land. To love another is something like prayer and can't be planned, you just fall into its arms because your belief undoes your disbelief.”

Men Want Giving Body Fall Belief Prayer Love Is Laughing Land Tears Arms Wave Your Body Sand Disbelief

Author:Anne Sexton

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

Men Ties Knots

Book:Selected Poems of Anne Sexton

Source: Selected Poems of Anne Sexton

“Now I am just an elderly lady who is full of spleen, who humps around greater Boston in a God-awful hat, who never lived and yet outlived her time, hating men and dogs and Democrats.”

Men Hate Greater Dog Democrat Awful Hats Boston Elderly Man And Dog Spleen

Book:Words for Dr. Y.: uncollected poems with three stories

Source: Words for Dr. Y.: uncollected poems with three stories

“If I could blame it on all the mothers and fathers of the world, they of the lessons, the pellets of power, they of the love surrounding you like batter ... Blame it on God perhaps? He of the first opening that pushed us all into our first mistakes? No, I'll blame it on Man For Man is God and man is eating the earth up like a candy bar and not one of them can be left alone with the ocean for it is known he will gulp it all down. The stars (possibly) are safe. At least for the moment. The stars are pears that no one can reach, even for a wedding. Perhaps for a death.”

Ifs Men World Firsts Moments Earth Mother Father Left Stars Mistake Known Lessons Safe Ocean Eating Blame Bars Opening If I Could Candy Left Alone Mother And Father Pears Candy Bar

Book:The Awful Rowing Toward God

Source: The Awful Rowing Toward God

“... man is eating the earth up like a candy bar.”

Men Earth Eating Bars Candy Candy Bar

Book:The Awful Rowing Toward God

Source: The Awful Rowing Toward God

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

Men Asks Hunger Meals Starving

Book:The Awful Rowing Toward God

Source: The Awful Rowing Toward God

About the Author

Born: November 9, 1928
Died: October 4, 1974
Known for: Poet
Quotes: 369

Books & Sources

Selected Poems of Anne SextonRelated source material

The Awful Rowing Toward GodRelated source material

Anne Sexton: A Self-portrait in LettersRelated source material

Words for Dr. Y.: uncollected poems with three storiesRelated source material

TransformationsRelated source material

45 Mercy StreetRelated source material

Love PoemsRelated source material

The death notebooksRelated source material

Selected poemsRelated source material

Anne Sexton: A Self Portrait in LettersRelated source material

Similar Authors

William Butler YeatsBrowse related quotes
George MacDonaldBrowse related quotes
Robert FrostBrowse related quotes
Sally-Ann RobertsBrowse related quotes
W. H. AudenBrowse related quotes
Andrea GibsonBrowse related quotes
Algernon Charles SwinburneBrowse related quotes
Holly BlackBrowse related quotes
Pablo NerudaBrowse related quotes
Lisa KleypasBrowse related quotes