Anne Sexton: Trending quotes

“She is so naked and singular
She is the sum of yourself and your dream.
Climb her like a monument, step after step.
She is solid.
As for me, I am a watercolor.
I wash off.

(For My Lover, Returning To His Wife)”

“It doesn't matter who my father was; it matters who I remember he was.”

“That’s what I do: I make coffee and occasionally succumb to suicidal nihilism. But you shouldn’t worry — poetry is still first. Cigarettes and alcohol follow”

“God has a brown voice, as soft and full as beer.”

“Only my books anoint me,
and a few friends,
those who reach into my veins.”

“I am a collection of dismantled almosts.”

“Watch out for intellect,
because it knows so much it knows nothing
and leaves you hanging upside down,
mouthing knowledge as your heart
falls out of your mouth.”

“Perhaps I am no one.
True, I have a body
and I cannot escape from it.
I would like to fly out of my head,
but that is out of the question.”

“All I wanted was a little piece of life, to be married, to have children…. I was trying my damnedest to lead a conventional life, for that was how I was brought up, and it was what my husband wanted of me. But one can't build little white picket fences to keep the nightmares out.”

“I am alone here in my own mind.
There is no map
and there is no road.
It is one of a kind
just as yours is.”

“I know that I have died before—once in November.”

“Sometimes the soul takes pictures of things it has wished for, but never seen.”

“As it has been said:
Love and a cough
cannot be concealed.
Even a small cough.
Even a small love.”

“Put your ear down close to your soul and listen hard.”

“As for me, I am a watercolor.
I wash off.”

“I am stuffing your mouth with your
promises and watching
you vomit them out upon my face.”

“Even so, I must admire your skill.
You are so gracefully insane.”

“I like you; your eyes are full of language."

[Letter to Anne Clarke, July 3, 1964. ]”

“Everyone in me is a bird
I am beating all my wings”