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Emily Dickinson Quotes

Browse 49 quotes about Emily Dickinson.

Emily Dickinson Quotes

“. . . beneath the surface, Emily was trying to understand if writers were responsible for the feelings they prompted in others: if hurling a word had the same effect as throwing a stone. Was imagination—like a loaded gun—the one pulling the trigger?”

WritingImaginationPower Of WordsEmily Dickinson
Book:These Fevered Days: Ten Pivotal Moments in the Making of Emily Dickinson
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“Oh my darling one, how long you wander from me, how weary I grow of waiting and looking, and calling for you; sometimes I shut my eyes, and shut my heart towards you, and try hard to forget you because you grieve me so, but you'll never go away, oh you never will.”

PoetryLettersEmily Dickinson
Book:Open Me Carefully: Emily Dickinson's Intimate Letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson
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“I need you more and more, and the great world grows wider, and dear ones fewer and fewer, every day that you stay away. My heart goes wandering around and calls for Susie...My heart is full of you; none other than you are in my thoughts, yet when I seek to say to you something not for the world, words fail me. If you were here, we need not talk at all for our eyes would whisper for us and, your hand fast in mine, we would not ask for language.”

PoetryLettersEmily Dickinson
Book:Open Me Carefully: Emily Dickinson's Intimate Letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson
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“When you come home, darling, I shant have your letters, but I shall have yourself, which is more-- oh more, and better, than I can even think! I sit here with my little whip, cracking the time away, 'till not an hour is left of it- then you are here! And joy is here-- joy now and forevermore! Tis only a few days, Susie, it will soon go away, yet I say, "go now, this very moment, for I need her- I must have her, oh, give her to me!" Sometimes when I do feel so, I think it may be wrong, and that God will punish me by taking you away; for He is very kind to let me write to you, and to give me your sweet letters, but my heart wants more.”

PoetryLettersEmily Dickinson
Book:Open Me Carefully: Emily Dickinson's Intimate Letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson
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“I felt a Funeral, in my Brain, And Mourners to and fro Kept treading – treading – till it seemed That Sense was breaking through – And when they all were seated, A Service, like a Drum – Kept beating – beating – till I thought My Mind was going numb – And then I heard them lift a Box And creak across my Soul With those same Boots of Lead, again, Then Space – began to toll, As all the Heavens were a Bell, And Being, but an Ear, And I, and Silence, some strange Race Wrecked, solitary, here – And then a Plank in Reason, broke, And I dropped down, and down – And hit a World, at every plunge, And Finished knowing – then –”

PainBrainDepressionFuneralElegyEmily Dickinson
Book:The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson
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“Emily always turned to language to soothe or lessen her distress. The letters could have served as a reminder of the pain she had experienced, but survived. Whatever purpose she had in writing remained a secret known only to her. She never shied away from looking anguish in the eye or contemplating its aftermath. To do so was an act of dominion over misery and resistance to inertia.”

WritingPainResistanceEmily Dickinson
Book:These Fevered Days: Ten Pivotal Moments in the Making of Emily Dickinson
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“All is as if the world did cease to exist. The city's monuments go unseen, its past unheard, and its culture slowly fading in the dismal sea.”

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Author:Nathan Reese Maher
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“I miss you, mourn for you, and walk the streets alone- often at night, beside, I fall asleep in tears, for your dear face, yet not one word comes back to me. If it is finished, tell me, and I will raise the lid to my box of Phantoms, and lay one more love in; but if it lives and beats still, still lives and beats for me, then say so, and I will strike the strings to one more strain of happiness before I die.”

PoetryLettersEmily Dickinson
Book:Open Me Carefully: Emily Dickinson's Intimate Letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson
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“Oh Susie, I often think that I will try to tell you how very dear you are, and how I'm watching for you, but the words won't come, though the tears will, and I sit down disappointed. Yet, darling, you know it all-- then why do I seek to tell you? I do not know. In thinking of those I love, my reason is all gone from me, and I do fear sometimes that I must make a hospital for the hopelessly insane, and chain myself up there so I won't injure you.”

PoetryLettersEmily Dickinson
Book:Open Me Carefully: Emily Dickinson's Intimate Letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson
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“They call each other ‘E.’ Elvis picks wildflowers near the river and brings them to Emily. She explains half-rhymes to him. In heaven Emily wears her hair long, sports Levis and western blouses with rhinestones. Elvis is lean again, wears baggy trousers and T-shirts, a letterman’s jacket from Tupelo High. They take long walks and often hold hands. She prefers they remain just friends. Forever. Emily’s poems now contain naugahyde, Cadillacs, Electricity, jets, TV, Little Richard and Richard Nixon. The rock-a-billy rhythm makes her smile. Elvis likes himself with style. This afternoon he will play guitar and sing “I Taste A Liquor Never Brewed” to the tune of “Love Me Tender.” Emily will clap and harmonize. Alone in their cabins later, they’ll listen to the river and nap. They will not think of Amherst or Las Vegas. They know why God made them roommates. It’s because America was their hometown. It’s because God is a thing without feathers. It’s because God wears blue suede shoes.”

PoetryHeavenFriendshipAmericansEmily DickinsonPlatonic LovePopElvis Presley
Author:Hans Ostrom
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“Awake ye muses nine, sing me a strain divine, Unwind the solemn twine, and tie my Valentine! Oh the Earth was made for lovers, for damsel, and hopeless swain, For sighing, and gentle whispering, and unity made of twain. All things do go a courting, in earth, or sea, or air, God hath made nothing single but thee in His world so fair! The bride, and then the bridegroom, the two, and then the one, Adam, and Eve, his consort, the moon, and then the sun; The life doth prove the precept, who obey shall happy be, Who will not serve the sovereign, be hanged on fatal tree. The high do seek the lowly, the great do seek the small, None cannot find who seeketh, on this terrestrial ball; The bee doth court the flower, the flower his suit receives, And they make merry wedding, whose guests are hundred leaves; The wind doth woo the branches, the branches they are won, And the father fond demandeth the maiden for his son. The storm doth walk the seashore humming a mournful tune, The wave with eye so pensive, looketh to see the moon, Their spirits meet together, they make their solemn vows, No more he singeth mournful, her sadness she doth lose. The worm doth woo the mortal, death claims a living bride, Night unto day is married, morn unto eventide; Earth is a merry damsel, and heaven a knight so true, And Earth is quite coquettish, and beseemeth in vain to sue. Now to the application, to the reading of the roll, To bringing thee to justice, and marshalling thy soul: Thou art a human solo, a being cold, and lone, Wilt have no kind companion, thou reap'st what thou hast sown. Hast never silent hours, and minutes all too long, And a deal of sad reflection, and wailing instead of song? There's Sarah, and Eliza, and Emeline so fair, And Harriet, and Susan, and she with curling hair! Thine eyes are sadly blinded, but yet thou mayest see Six true, and comely maidens sitting upon the tree; Approach that tree with caution, then up it boldly climb, And seize the one thou lovest, nor care for space, or time! Then bear her to the greenwood, and build for her a bower, And give her what she asketh, jewel, or bird, or flower — And bring the fife, and trumpet, and beat upon the drum — And bid the world Goodmorrow, and go to glory home!”

BeautifulPoetryPoemEmily Dickinson
Book:The Complete Poems from Emily Dickinson:
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“Do we not each dream of dreams? Do we not dance on the notes of lost memories? Then are we not each dreamers of tomorrow and yesterday, since dreams play when time is askew? Are we not all adrift in the constant sea of trial and when all is done, do we not all yearn for ships to carry us home?”

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Author:Nathan Reese Maher
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“I can’t help but ask, “Do you know where you are?” She turns to me with a foreboding glare. “Do you?”

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Author:Nathan Reese Maher
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“There is a stillness between us, a period of restlessness that ties my stomach in a hangman’s noose. It is this same lack in noise that lives, there! in the darkness of the grave, how it frightens me beyond all things.”

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Author:Nathan Reese Maher
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“History doesn’t start with a tall building and a card with your name written on it, but jokes do. I think someone is taking us for suckers and is playing a mean game.”

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Author:Nathan Reese Maher
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“I steal one glance over my shoulder as soon as we are far from the foreboding luminance of the neon glow, and it is there that my stomach leaps into my throat. Squatting just shy of the light and partially concealed by the shade of an alley is a sinister silhouette beneath a crimson cowl, beaming a demonic smile which spans from cheek to swollen cheek.”

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Author:Nathan Reese Maher
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“She leaves my side and heads deeper into the apartment singing, “—if the spirit tries to hide, its temple far away… a copper for those they ask, a diamond for those who stay.”

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Author:Nathan Reese Maher
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“I rouse Emily to our guests, as she finishes off our fifteenth snowman by setting the head atop its torso. She stands limp at my direction, pointing out the coming shadows and I cannot help but hear a muffled sigh as she decapitates her latest creation with a single push of her hand.”

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Author:Nathan Reese Maher
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“That’s a stupid name! Whirly-gig is much better, I think. Who in their right mind would point at this thing and say, ‘I’m going to fly in my Model-A1’. People would much rather say, ‘Get in my whirly-gig’. And that’s what you should name it.”

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Author:Nathan Reese Maher
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“You know that book of poems I’m always carrying around? [...] In one of her poems, she calls hope the ‘thing with feathers,’ and I always think about that…. Maybe when we hope for something, the hope flies off to find whatever it is we’re thinking about…and then it brings it back to us. And when there’s nothing else we can do, at least we can hope.”

PoetryHopePoemWingsFlyingFlightFeathersHopingEmily DickinsonHope Is The Thing With Feathers
Book:Aru Shah and the City of Gold
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“she wanted to know what American writers I liked. "Hawthorne, Henry James, Emily Dickinson…" "No, living." Ah, well, hmm, let's see: how difficult, the rival factor being what it is, for a contemporary author, or would-be author, to confess admiration for another. At last I said, "Not Hemingway—a really dishonest man, the closet-everything. Not Thomas Wolfe—all that purple upchuck; of course, he isn't living. Faulkner, sometimes: Light in August. Fitzgerald, sometimes: Diamond as Big as the Ritz, Tender Is the Night. I really like Willa Cather. Have you read My Mortal Enemy?" With no particular expression, she said, "Actually, I wrote it.”

Henry JamesErnest HemingwayEmily DickinsonTender Is The NightF Scott FitzgeraldWilliam FaulknerThomas WolfeWilla CatherNathaniel HawthorneLight In AugustDiamond As Big As The Ritz
Book:Portraits and Observations: The Essays of Truman Capote
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“If I Returned From The Land of Death by Stewart Stafford If I returned from the land of Death, Could I recall its vast domain? To regale with tales of my last breath, Or bury all such earthly pain? Do infinite spirits teem astral skies, Whispering, "Infant, be not afraid!"? Ocean glare that blinds not the eyes, Heartfelt welcomes can but persuade. To see those I lost once more, As smiles and greetings abound? Why would I wade a waning shore, To reject formless bliss so sound? © 2025, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.”

PhilosophyDeathSpiritualityGriefImmortalityAfterlifeExistentialMetaphysicalTranscendenceEmily Dickinson
Author:Stewart Stafford
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“He marveled at the poetry of Emily Dickinson, sensing her kindred spirit. For the last seventeen years of her life, Dickinson rarely left her home in Massachusetts and spoke to visitors only through a partially closed door. "Saying nothing, " she wrote, "sometimes says the most.”

SolitarySaying NothingEmily Dickinson
Book:The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit
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“The Surly Caller by Stewart Stafford Pain - stalker at my door; Resigned admission inside, Drags a chair, fills teary ducts, Drapes tingling spider's webs. Grey vista of a dreaded visit, Common or garden victim by force, Pain is the barb to candied joy; Twin-horned teasing tormentor. In rapid eye movement, we dream, It sleepwalks in my creaking room, I hear stumbling footsteps stir, Claws retract in numbing slumber. © Stewart Stafford, 2023. All rights reserved.”

PainSufferingDreamsMetaphorSurrealismStalkerPersonificationEmily DickinsonStalkersSadomasochism
Author:Stewart Stafford
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