M.attie favourite quotes (page 8) | Quotes of famous people

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

“Is it the sea you hear in me?
Its dissatisfactions?
Or the voice of nothing, that was your madness?

Love is a shadow.
How you lie and cry after it.”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

Source: Ariel: The Restored Edition

“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.”

Sylvia Plath Ariel

"Lady Lazarus" http://www.angelfire.com/tn/plath/lady.html
Source: Ariel (1965)

“Perhaps some day I'll crawl back home, beaten, defeated. But not as long as I can make stories out of my heartbreak, beauty out of sorrow.”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

Source: The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

“Perhaps when we find ourselves wanting everything, it is because we are dangerously near to wanting nothing.”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

Draft of letter to Richard Sassoon (December 1955), quoted in Joyce Carol Oates, "Raising Lady Lazarus," The New York Times (2000-11-05) http://www.nytimes.com/books/00/11/05/reviews/001105.05oatest.html
The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath (2000)
Variant: Perhaps when we find ourselves wanting everything, it is because we are dangerously close to wanting nothing.

“I love him to hell and back and heaven and back, and have and do and will.”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

“I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart: I am, I am, I am.”

Sylvia Plath book The Bell Jar

Variant: I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart: I am, I am, I am.
Source: The Bell Jar (1963), Ch. 20

“You are a dream; I hope I never meet you.”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

Source: The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

“I am terrified by this dark thing that sleeps in me.”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

Source: The Collected Poems

“I proclaim that I believe in nothing and that everything is absurd, but I cannot doubt the validity of my proclamation and I must at least believe in my protest.”

Albert Camus book The Rebel

Source: The Rebel (1951), pp. 8 - 10 as quoted in Albert Camus and the Philosophy of the Absurd';(2002) by Avi Sagi, p. 44
Context: The absurd … is an experience to be lived through, a point of departure, the equivalent, in existence of Descartes' methodical doubt. Absurdism, like methodical doubt, has wiped the slate clean. It leaves us in a blind alley. But, like methodical doubt, it can, by returning upon itself, open up a new field of investigation, and in the process of reasoning then pursues the same course. I proclaim that I believe in nothing and that everything is absurd, but I cannot doubt the validity of my proclamation and I must at least believe in my protest. The first and only evidence that is supplied me, within the terms of the absurdist experience, is rebellion … Rebellion is born of the spectacle of irrationality, confronted with an unjust and incomprehensible condition.

“The evil that is in the world always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence, if they lack understanding.”

Albert Camus book The Plague

The Plague (1947)
Context: The evil that is in the world always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence, if they lack understanding. On the whole men are more good than bad; that, however, isn't the real point. But they are more or less ignorant, and it is this that we call vice or virtue; the most incorrigible vice being that of an ignorance which fancies it knows everything and therefore claims for itself the right to kill. There can be no true goodness, nor true love, without the utmost clear-sightedness.

“I am as bad as the worst, but, thank God, I am as good as the best.”

Walt Whitman (1819–1892) American poet, essayist and journalist

“Cheat your landlord if you can and must, but do not try to shortchange the Muse. It cannot be done. You can't fake quality any more than you can fake a good meal.”

William S. Burroughs book The Western Lands

Source: The Western Lands (1987), ch. 2

“Hustlers of the world, there is one Mark you cannot beat: The Mark Inside.”

William S. Burroughs book Naked Lunch

From the chapter entitled "Rube", p. 11
Naked Lunch (1959)

“Build a good name. Keep your name clean. Don’t make compromises, don’t worry about making a bunch of money or being successful — be concerned with doing good work and make the right choices and protect your work. And if you build a good name, eventually, that name will be its own currency.”

William S. Burroughs (1914–1997) American novelist, short story writer, essayist, painter, and spoken word performer

Recounted by Patti Smith in an Interview by Christian Lund http://vimeo.com/57857893, the Louisiana Literature festival August 24, 2012, at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art

“The face of "evil" is always the face of total need. A dope fiend is a man in total need of dope. Beyond a certain frequency need knows absolutely no limit or control. In the words of total need: "Wouldn't you?" Yes you would. You would lie, cheat, inform on your friends, steal, do anything to satisfy total need. Because you would be in a state of total sickness, total possession, and not in a position to act in any other way. Dope fiends are sick people who cannot act other than they do. A rabid dog cannot choose but bite.”

William S. Burroughs book Naked Lunch

Introduction
Naked Lunch (1959)

“A junky runs on junk time. When his junk is cut off, the clock runs down and stops. All he can do is hang on and wait for non-junk time to start. A sick junkie has no escape from external time, no place to go. He can only wait.”

William S. Burroughs book Junkie

Junkie (1953)

“Junk is surrounded by magic and taboos, curses and amulets.”

William S. Burroughs book Naked Lunch

Opening Chapter
Naked Lunch (1959)

“1. Never give anything away for nothing. 2. Never give more than you have to (always catch the buyer hungry and always make him wait). 3. Always take back everything if you possibly can.”

William S. Burroughs (1914–1997) American novelist, short story writer, essayist, painter, and spoken word performer

On drug dealing, quoted in The Daily Telegraph (1964)

“Once a junky, always a junky. You can stop using junk, but you are never off after the first habit.”

William S. Burroughs book Junkie

Junkie (1953)
Context: Why does an addict get a new habit so much quicker than a junk virgin, even after the addict has been clean for years? I do not accept the theory that junk is lurking in the body all that time - the spine is where it supposedly holes up - and I disagree with all psychological answers. I think the use of junk causes permanent cellular alteration. Once a junky, always a junky. You can stop using junk, but you are never off after the first habit.