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The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

This book presents the extensive and unedited journals of Sylvia Plath, offering a candid and intimate look into her thoughts, experiences, and creative process throughout her life. more

Author

Sylvia Plath
Sylvia Plath

American poet, novelist, and playwright. Her works are known for their profound emotion and unique style, and she is considered one of the most important female writers of the 20th century. more

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“Sure, I’m dramatic and sloppily semi-cynical and semi-sentimental. But, in leisure years I could grow and choose my way. Now I am living on the edge. We all are on the brink, and it takes a lot of nerve, a lot of energy, to teeter on the edge, looking over, looking down into the windy blackness and not being quite able to make out, through the yellow, stinking mist, just what lies below in the slime, in the oozing, vomit-streaked slime; and so I could go on, my thoughts, writing much, trying to find the core, the meaning for myself.”

WayWritingTryingYearsAbleLyingEnergyGrowsGoes OnEdgesCoreMy WayDramaticNervesYellowCynicalLeisureSentimentalMy ThoughtsMistLiving OnBlacknessMake OutLooking DownWindySlimeLiving On The Edge
Book:The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
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“But I am I now; and so many other millions are so irretrievably their own special variety of 'I' that I can hardly bear to think of it. I: how firm a letter; how reassuring the three strokes: one vertical, proud and assertive, and then the two short horizontal lines in quick, smug succession. The pen scratching on the paper…I…I…I…I…I…I.”

ThinkingI CanTwoThreeLinesMillionsSpecialBearsProudPaperLettersVarietyFirmPensStrokesSuccessionReassuringVerticalAssertiveHorizontalHorizontal Lines
Book:The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
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“…* to learn that money makes life smooth in some ways, and to feel how tight and threadbare life is if you have too little. * to despise money, which is a farce, mere paper, and to hate what you have to do for it, and yet to long to have it in order to be free from slaving for it. * to yearn toward art, music, ballet and good books, and get them only in tantalizing snatches.”

IfsWayFeelsLittlesLongArtBookLife IsHateOrderPaperMereBalletDespiseSmoothGood BookFarceArt MusicTantalizing
Author:Sylvia Plath
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“* to know a lot of people I love pieces of, and to want to synthesize those pieces in me somehow, be it by painting or writing. * to know that millions of others are unhappy and that life is a gentleman's agreement to grin and paint your face gay so others will feel they are silly to be unhappy, and try to catch the contagion of joy, while inside so many are dying of bitterness and unfulfillment.”

PeopleKnowsWantFeelsWritingTryingFacesLife IsJoyMillionsPiecesDyingPaintingGayPaintSillyUnhappyGentlemanAgreementYour FaceBitternessContagionUnfulfillment
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“So you got rid of your astonishment that someone could write so much more dynamically than you. You stopped cherishing your aloneness and poetic differentness to your delicately flat little bosom. You said: she's to good to forget. How about making her a friend and competitor — you could learn alot from her. So you'll try. So maybe she'll laugh in your face. So maybe she'll beat you hollow in the end. So anyhow, you'll try, and maybe, possibly, she can stand you. Here's hoping!”

WritingTryingLittlesSaidEndsFacesForgetLaughingBeatsFlatsPoeticCherishYour FaceCompetitorsHollowBosomsAstonishment
Author:Sylvia Plath
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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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