“If only I knew what I wanted I could try to see about getting it.”
Source: The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
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Sylvia Plath 342
American poet, novelist and short story writer 1932–1963Related quotes
On developing his shot-putting skill, as quoted in "Film Star and Olympian Herman Brix" by Adam Bernstein, in The Washington Post (28 February 2007)
Context: All I knew about shot putting was that my brother could do 44 feet … I decided I wanted to beat him. … So I got a shot and went to work and made up my mind to do 45 feet.
Nebraska native to become Grand Island bishop https://journalstar.com/lifestyles/faith-and-values/nebraska-native-to-become-grand-island-bishop/article_26c769be-14c3-521b-861e-8ade5a94b0b5.html (January 17, 2015)
Source http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20037961,00.html?cid=recirc-peopleRecirc
“I wanted to be where nobody I knew could ever come.”
Source: The Bell Jar
Black Elk Speaks (1961)
Context: They told me I had been sick twelve days, lying like dead all the while, and that Whirlwind Chaser, who was Standing Bear's uncle and a medicine man, had brought me back to life. I knew it was the Grandfathers in the Flaming Rainbow Tepee who had cured me; but I felt afraid to say so. My father gave Whirlwind Chaser the best horse he had for making me well, and many people came to look at me, and there was much talk about the great power of Whirlwind Chaser who had made me well all at once when I was almost the same as dead.
Everybody was glad that I was living; but as I lay there thinking about the wonderful place where I had been and all that I had seen, I was very sad; for it seemed to me that everybody ought to know about it, but I was afraid to tell, because I knew that nobody would believe me, little as I was, for I was only nine years old. Also, as I lay there thinking of my vision, I could see it all again and feel the meaning with a part of me like a strange power glowing in my body; but when the part of me that talks would try to make words for the meaning, it would be like fog and get away from me.
I am sure now that I was then too young to understand it all, and that I only felt it. It was the pictures I remembered and the words that went with them; for nothing I have ever seen with my eyes was so clear and bright as what my vision showed me; and no words that I have ever heard with my ears were like the words I heard. I did not have to remember these things; they have remembered themselves all these years. It was as I grew older that the meanings came clearer and clearer out of the pictures and the words; and even now I know that more was shown to me than I can tell.