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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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“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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“Yes, my consuming desire is to mingle with road crews, sailors and soldiers, barroom regulars - to be a part of a scene, anonymous, listening, recording - all this is spoiled by the fact that I am a girl, a female always supposedly in danger of assault and battery. My consuming interest in men and their lives is often misconstrued as a desire to seduce them, or as an invitation to intimacy. Yes, God, I want to talk to everybody as deeply as I can. I want to be able to sleep in an open field, to travel west, to walk freely at night.”

MenWantI CanFactsAbleLife IsDesireNightGirlInterestSleepWalksDangerFieldsListeningSceneFemaleWestSoldierIntimacyCrewAssaultInvitationsConsumingSailorSpoiledSeducingBatteriesOpen FieldsMisconstrued
Author:Sylvia Plath
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“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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“When I was nineteen, pureness was the great issue. Instead of the world being divided up into Catholics and Protestants or Republicans and Democrats or white men and black men or even men and women, I saw the world divided into people who had slept with somebody and people who hadn’t, and this seemed the only really significant difference between one person and another.”

PeopleMenWorldPersonsBlackDifferencesWhiteIssuesSawsRepublicanMen And WomenCatholicDemocratSignificantDividedWhite ManProtestantsNineteenPureness
Book:the bell jar
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“Antoine St. Exupery once mourned the loss of a man and the secret treasures that he held inside him. I loved Exupery; I will read him again, and he will talk to me, not being dead, or gone. Is that life after death — mind living on paper and flesh living in offspring? Maybe. I do not know.”

KnowsMenMindLossSecretGonePaperFleshTreasureAfter DeathLiving OnOffspringTalk To MeLife After Death
Book:The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
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“I thought it sounded just like the sort of drug a man would invent. Here was a woman in terrible pain, obviously feeling every bit of it or she wouldn't groan like that, and she would go straight home and start another baby, because the drug would make her forget how bad the pain had been, when all the time, in some secret part of her, that long, blind, doorless and windowless corridor or pain was waiting to open up and shut her in again.”

MenLongFeelingsHomePainBitsWaitingForgetSecretBabyTerribleDrugBlindCorridors
Book:the bell jar
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