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Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath Quotes

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Famous Sylvia Plath Quotes

“I didn't know shorthand either. This meant I couldn't get a good job after college. My mother kept telling me nobody wanted a plain English major. But an English major who knew shorthand would be something else again. Everybody would want her. She would be in demand among all the up-and-coming young men and she would transcribe letter after thrilling letter. The trouble was, I hated the idea of serving men in any way. I wanted to dictate my own thrilling letters.”

KnowsMenWayWantIdeasWould BeWantedJobsYoungMotherMy OwnTroubleCollegeDemandMajorsLettersHatedYoung ManServingGood JobThrillingShorthandEnglish MajorPlain English
Author:Sylvia Plath
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“At this rate, I'd be lucky if I wrote a page a day. Then I knew what the problem was. I needed experience. How could I write about life when I'd never had a love affair or a baby or even seen anybody die? A girl I knew had just won a prize for a short story about her adventures among the pygmies in Africa. How could I compete with that sort of thing?”

IfsWritingStoriesProblemDiesGirlAdventureBabyNeededLuckyPagesRateAffairPrizeShort StoryLove Affair
Book:the bell jar
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“I saw the days of the year stretching ahead like a series of bright, white boxes, and separating one box from another was sleep, like a black shade. Only for me, the long perspective of shades that set off one box from the next day had suddenly snapped up, and I could see day after day after day glaring ahead of me like a white, broad, infinitely desolate avenue.”

YearsLongNextBlackSleepWhiteSawsPerspectiveSeriesBoxesBroadsShadeNext DayAvenuesStretchingSeparatingDesolateDays Of The Year
Book:the bell jar
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“This is newness: every little tawdry Obstacle glass-wrapped and peculiar, Glinting and clinking in a saint's falsetto. Only you Don't know what to make of the sudden slippiness, The blind, white, awful, inaccessible slant. There's no getting up it by the words you know. No getting up by elephant or wheel or shoe. We have only come to look. You are too new To want the world in a glass hat.”

KnowsWorldWantLooksLittlesWhiteBlindShoesSaintGlassesObstaclesAwfulWheelsHatsPeculiarElephantsNewnessInaccessibleFalsetto
Book:Collected Poems
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“Let's face it: I'm scared, scared and frozen. First, I guess, I'm afraid for myself ... the old primitive urge for survival. It's getting so I live every moment with terrible intensity. Last night, driving back from Boston, I lay back in the car and let the colored lights come at me, the music from the radio, the reflection of the guy driving. It all flowed over me with a screaming ache of pain ... remember, remember, this is now, and now, and now. Live it, feel it, cling to it. I want to become acutely aware of all I've taken for granted. When you feel that this may be the good-bye, the last time, it hits you harder.”

WantFeelsFirstsMayMomentsPainLastsRememberFacesTakenAwarenessTerribleSurvivalHarderScaredBe GoodGrantedUrgesIntensityPrimitiveLast TimeFrozenAcheByeGood ByeTaken For GrantedLive Every Moment
Author:Sylvia Plath
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“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 its appalling self-consciousness is horrible and overpowering.”

FeelsLongSoulSelfLastsFacesLife IsJoyPurposeDarkPartyGriefConsciousnessLonelinessUglyHorribleDespiteYour SoulFulfillmentShockMeaninglessCompanionshipSelf ConsciousnessGrinningOpiatesOverpoweringGaietyTinselLoneliness In Life
Book:The Journals of Sylvia Plath
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“I didn’t want my picture taken because I was going to cry. I didn’t know why I was going to cry, but I knew that if anybody spoke to me or looked at me too closely the tears would fly out of my eyes and the sobs would fly out of my throat and I’d cry for a week. I could feel the tears brimming and sloshing in me like water in a glass that is unsteady and too full.”

IfsKnowsWantFeelsEyeWaterTakenWeekCryTearsDepressionGlassesSpokesThroatBell JarPicture Taken
Book:the bell jar
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“From the night Buddy Willard kissed me and said I must go out with a lot of boys, he made me feel I was much more sexy and experienced than he was and that everything he did like hugging and kissing and petting was simply what I made him feel like doing out of the blue, he couldn’t help it and didn’t know how it came about. Now I saw he had only been pretending all this time to be so innocent.”

KnowsFeelsMadeSaidHelpingNightBoysKnow HowSawsKissingBlueSexyInnocentPretendingHugBuddy
Book:the bell jar
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“I had always imagined myself hitching up on to my elbows on the delivery table after it was all over - dead white, of course, with no makeup and from the awful ordeal, but smiling and radiant, with my hair down to my waist, and reaching out for my first little squirmy child and saying its name, whatever it was.”

FirstsChildrenLittlesCoursesNamesWhiteHairTablesAwfulReachingMakeupReach OutDeliveryRadiantElbowsOrdealsNo Makeup
Book:the bell jar
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“I’d discovered, after a lot of extreme apprehension about what spoons to use, that if you do something incorrect at table with a certain arrogance, as if you knew perfectly well you were doing it properly, you can get away with it and nobody will think you are bad-mannered or poorly brought up. They will think you are original and very witty.”

IfsThinkingWellsUseCertainFoodOriginalsTablesCookingWittyExtremesArroganceGet AwayCulinarySpoonsApprehensionVery Witty
Book:the bell jar
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