Anne Sexton: Doing

Anne Sexton was poet from the United States. Explore interesting quotes on doing.

Anne Sexton: 240 quotes35 likes

“Depression is boring, I think
and I would do better to make
some soup and light up the cave.”

“Saints have no moderation, nor do poets, just exuberance.”

“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”

“When I'm writing, I know I'm doing the thing I was born to do.”

“I am murdering me, where I kneeled at your kiss.
I am pushing knives through the hands
that created two into one.
Our hands do not bleed at this,
they lie still in their dishonor.”

"Killing the Love" from The Divorce Papers
45 Mercy Street (1976)

“What can I do with this memory?
Shake the bones out of it?
Defoliate the smile?
Stub out the chin with cigarettes?
Take the face of the man I love
and squeeze my foot into it,
when all the while my heart is making a museum?
I love you the way the oboe plays.
I love you the way skinny dipping makes my body feel.
I love you the way a ripe artichoke tastes.
Yet I fear you,
as one in the desert fears the sun.”

"Waking Alone" from The Divorce Papers
45 Mercy Street (1976)

“I imitate
a memory of belief
that I do not own.”

"The Division of Parts"
To Bedlam and Part Way Back (1960)

“In my sights I carve him
like a sculptor. I mold out
his last look at everyone.
I carry his eyes and his
brain bone at every position.
I know his male sex and I do
march over him with my index finger.
His mouth and his anus are one.
I am at the center of feeling.”

Anne Sexton book The Book of Folly

"The Assassin"
The Book of Folly (1972)