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Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath Quotes

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Famous Sylvia Plath Quotes

“I watched the men walk about me in the office. They were so flat! There was something about them like cardboard, and now I had caught it, That flat, flat, flatness from which ideas, destructions, Bulldozers, guillotines, white chambers of shrieks proceed, Endlessly proceed—and the cold angels, the abstractions. I sat at my desk in my stockings, my high heels, And the man I work for laughed: 'Have you seen something awful? You are so white, suddenly.' And I said nothing.”

MenWomenWorkDestructionGenderAwfulnessFlatnessOffices
Book:Winter Trees
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“è come sollevara una campana di vetro posta sopra una comunità dove tutto funziona come un meccanismo oliato, e vedere i minuscoli, indaffarati abitanti arrestarsi di colpo, boccheggiare, gonfiarsi e librarsi nell'aflusso ( anzi, nel deflusso) della rarefatta atmosfera della norma: poveri esserini spaventati che agitano le braccia impotenti nell'aria indecisa. è così che ci sente a liberarsi dalla routine.”

SadnessDepressionBell JarBreak The Habit
Book:The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
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“So, now I shall talk every night. To myself. To the moon. I shall walk, as I did tonight, jealous of my loneliness, in the blue-silver of the cold moon, shining brilliantly on the drifts of fresh-fallen snow, with the myriad sparkles. I talk to myself and look at the dark trees, blessedly neutral. So much easier than facing people, than having to look happy, invulnerable, clever. With masks down, I walk, talking to the moon, to the neutral impersonal force that does not hear, but merely accepts my being. And does not smite me down.”

PeopleNatureSolitude
Book:The Journals of Sylvia Plath
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“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig-tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked . . . I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig-tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.”

LostFearFutureAnxietyIndecisiveness
Book:the bell jar
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“what is my life for and what am I going to do with it? I don't know and I am afraid. I can never read all the books I want; I can never be all the people I want and live all the lives I want. I can never train myself in all the skills I want. and why do I want? I want to live and feel all the shades, tones and variations of mental and physical experience possible in my life. and I am horribly limited.”

Inspirational Attitude
Book:The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
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“With me, the present is forever, and forever is always shifting, flowing, melting. This second is life. And when it is gone it is dead. But you can't start over with each new second. You have to judge by what is dead. It's like quicksand...hopeless from the start. A story, a picture, can renew sensation a little, but not enough, not enough. Nothing is real except the present, and already, I feel the weight of centuries smothering me. Some girl a hundred years ago once lived as I do. And she is dead. I am the present, but I know I, too, will pass. The high moments, the burning flash, come and are gone, continuous quicksand. And I don't want to die.”

LifeAmbitionLivingYearningPresentMomentEpiphanyQuicksandTo LiveStagnancy
Book:The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
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“I am drowning in negativism, self-hate, doubt, madness - and even I am not strong enough to deny the routine, the rote, to simplify. No, I go plodding on, afraid that the blank hell in back of my eyes will break through, spewing forth like a dark pestilence; afraid that the disease which eats away the pith of my body with merciless impersonality will break forth in obvious sores and warts, screaming "Traitor, sinner, imposter.”

SadnessMadnessSelf DoubtNegativism
Book:The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
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“Once they’d even brought the minister of the Unitarian church, whom I’d never really liked at all. He was terribly nervous the whole time, and I could tell he thought I was crazy as a loon, because I told him I believed in hell, and that certain people, like me, had to live in hell before they died, to make up for missing out on it after death, since they didn’t believe in life after death, and what each person believed happened to him when he died.”

SufferingLife And DeathHeaven And HellLife After DeathHell On EarthHell And BackHell And Heaven
Book:the bell jar
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“I can't deceive myself that out of the bare stark realization that no matter how enthusiastic you are, no matter how sure that character is fate, nothing is real, past or future, when you are alone in your room with the clock ticking loudly into the false cheerful brilliance of the electric light. And if you have no past or future which, after all, is all that the present is made of, why then you may as well dispose of the empty shell of present and commit suicide.”

LonelinessFutureDepressionSuicide
Book:The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
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“There is no living being on earth at this moment except myself. I could walk down the halls, and empty rooms would yawn mockingly at me from every side. God, but life is loneliness, despite all the opiates, despite the shrill tinsel gaiety of 'parties' with no purpose, despite the false grinning faces we all wear. And when at last you find someone to whom you feel you can pour out your soul, you stop in shock at the words you utter — they are so rusty, so ugly, so meaningless and feeble from being kept in the small cramped dark inside you so long. Yes, there is joy, fulfillment and companionship — but the loneliness of the soul in it's appalling self-consciousness, is horrible and overpowering.”

Loneliness
Book:The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
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“Quando infine trovi qualcuno in cui senti di poter riversare la tua anima, ti blocchi di colpo davanti alle tue stesse parole - le hai tenute dentro così a lungo, contratte nel buio, che sono ormai sbiadite, brutte, banali, fiacche. Sì, c'è l'allegria, l'autorealizzazione, lo stare insieme: ma la solitudine dell'anima, nella sua spaventosa consapevolezza, è insopportabile, soverchiante.”

LonelinessDepressionSolitudine
Book:The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
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“I've been wondering... I mean, I thought you might be able to tell me something." Buddy met my eyes and I saw, for the first time, how he had changed. Instead of the old, sure smile that flashed on easily and frequently as a photographer's bulb, his face was grave, even tentative -- the face of a man who often does not get what he wants. "I'll tell you if I can, Buddy." "Do you think there's something in me that drives women crazy?”

MenWomenChangeChangedEyesFaceWantsDriving CrazyTentativeChange Of Perspective
Book:the bell jar
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