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Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath Quotes

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Famous Sylvia Plath Quotes

“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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“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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“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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“LADY LAZARUS I have done it again. One year in every ten I manage it-- A sort of walking miracle, my skin Bright as a Nazi lampshade, My right foot A paperweight, My face a featureless, fine Jew linen. Peel off the napkin O my enemy. Do I terrify?-- The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth? The sour breath Will vanish in a day. Soon, soon the flesh The grave cave ate will be At home on me And I a smiling woman. I am only thirty. And like the cat I have nine times to die. This is Number Three. What a trash To annihilate each decade. What a million filaments. The peanut-crunching crowd Shoves in to see Them unwrap me hand and foot-- The big strip tease. Gentlemen, ladies These are my hands My knees. I may be skin and bone, Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman. The first time it happened I was ten. It was an accident. The second time I meant To last it out and not come back at all. I rocked shut As a seashell. They had to call and call And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls. Dying Is an art, like everything else. I do it exceptionally well. I do it so it feels like hell. I do it so it feels real. I guess you could say I've a call. It's easy enough to do it in a cell. It's easy enough to do it and stay put. It's the theatrical Comeback in broad day To the same place, the same face, the same brute Amused shout: 'A miracle!' That knocks me out. There is a charge For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge For the hearing of my heart-- It really goes. And there is a charge, a very large charge For a word or a touch Or a bit of blood Or a piece of my hair or my clothes. So, so, Herr Doktor. So, Herr Enemy. I am your opus, I am your valuable, The pure gold baby That melts to a shriek. I turn and burn. Do not think I underestimate your great concern. Ash, ash-- You poke and stir. Flesh, bone, there is nothing there-- A cake of soap, A wedding ring, A gold filling. Herr God, Herr Lucifer Beware Beware. Out of the ash I rise with my red hair And I eat men like air. -- written 23-29 October 1962”

DeathPoetryDepressionSuicide
Book:Ariel
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“I thought the most beautiful thing in the world must be shadow, the million moving shapes and cul-de-sacs of shadow. There was shadow in bureau drawers and closets and suitcases, and shadow under houses and trees and stones, and shadow at the back of people's eyes and smiles, and shadow, miles and miles and miles of it, on the night side of the earth.”

PeopleWorldEyeEarthBeautifulMovingNightHouseSidesMillionsTreeShapesDepressionShadowStonesMilesBeautiful ThingsClosetsDrawersSuitcasesBell Jar
Book:the bell jar
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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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“You have lost all delight in life. Ahead is a large array of blind alleys. You are half-deliberately, half-desperately cutting off your grip on creative life. You are becoming a neuter machine. You cannot love, even if you knew how to begin to love. Every thought is a devil, a hell-if you could do a lot of things over again, ah, how differently you would do them! You want to go home, back to the womb. You watch the world bang door after door in your face, numbly, bitterly. You have forgotten the secret you knew, once, ah, once, of being joyous, of laughing, of opening doors.”

IfsWorldWantHomeFacesLostSecretHalfWatchesLaughingHellCreativeCuttingDoorsBecomingDepressionDevilMachinesBlindForgottenIllnessDelightMental IllnessOpeningYour FaceWombBangsJoyousAlleysCreative LifeCutting OffOpening Doors
Book:The Journals of Sylvia Plath
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“Look at that ugly dead mask here and do not forget it. It is a chalk mask with dead dry poison behind it, like the death angel. It is what I was this fall, and what I never want to be again. The pouting disconsolate mouth, the flat, bored, numb, expressionless eyes: symptoms of the foul decay within.”

WantLooksEyeFallForgetBehindsDepressionMouthsAngelIllnessUglyMental IllnessBoredPoisonDryEmptinessMaskFlatsDecaySymptomsForget ItDetachmentFoulNumbNumbnessChalkAngel Of DeathPouting
Book:The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
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“... you looked around and saw everybody either married or busy and happy and thinking and being creative, and you felt scared, sick, lethargic, worst of all, not wanting to cope. You saw visions of yourself in a straightjacket, and a drain on the family, murdering your mother in actuality, killing the edifice of love and respect built up over the years in the hearts of other people.”

PeopleThinkingYearsHeartMotherFeltVisionCreativeSawsWorstDepressionMarriedBuiltSickKillingBusyScaredIllnessMental IllnessBe CreativeDrainsLove And RespectActualityEdificeLethargic
Book:The Journals of Sylvia Plath
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