"Is Bliss then, such Abyss,
I must not put my foot amiss
For fear I spoil my shoe?

I'd rather suit my foot
Than save my Boot --
For yet to buy another Pair
is possible,
At any store --

But Bliss, is sold just once.
The Patent lost
None buy it any more --"
— Emily Dickinson (I'm Nobody! Who Are You?)

"I died for beauty but was scarce
Adjusted in the tomb,
When one who died for truth was lain
In an adjoining room.

He questioned softly why I failed?
"For beauty," I replied.
"And I for truth, the two are one;
We brethren are," he said.

And so, as kinsmen met a night,
We talked between the rooms,
Until the moss had reached our lips,
And covered up our names."
— Emily Dickinson

"I had been hungry all the years-
My noon had come, to dine-
I, trembling, drew the table near
And touched the curious wine.

'Twas this on tables I had seen
When turning, hungry, lone,
I looked in windows, for the wealth
I could not hope to own.

I did not know the ample bread,
'Twas so unlike the crumb
The birds and I had often shared
In Nature's diningroom.

The plenty hurt me, 'twas so new,--
Myself felt ill and odd,
As berry of a mountain bush
Transplanted to the road.

Nor was I hungry; so I found
That hunger was a way
Of persons outside windows,
The entering takes away."
— Emily Dickinson (I'm Nobody! Who Are You?)

"I measure every Grief I meet
With narrow, probing, Eyes;
I wonder if It weighs like Mine,
Or has an Easier size.

I wonder if They bore it long,
Or did it just begin?
I could not tell the Date of Mine,
It feels so old a pain.

I wonder if it hurts to live,
And if They have to try,
And whether, could They choose between,
It would not be, to die.

I note that Some --
gone patient long --
At length, renew their smile.
An imitation of a Light
That has so little Oil.

I wonder if when Years have piled,
Some Thousands -- on the Harm
Of early hurt -- if such a lapse
Could give them any Balm;

Or would they go on aching still
Through Centuries above,
Enlightened to a larger Pain
By Contrast with the Love.

The Grieved are many,
I am told;
The reason deeper lies, --
Death is but one
and comes but once,
And only nails the eyes.

There's Grief of Want
and Grief of Cold, --
A sort they call "Despair";
There's Banishment from native Eyes,
In sight of Native Air.

And though I may not guess the kind
Correctly, yet to me
A piercing Comfort it affords
In passing Calvary,

To note the fashions of the Cross,
And how they're mostly worn,
Still fascinated to presume
That Some are like My Own."
— Emily Dickinson (I'm Nobody! Who Are You?)

"It was not death, for I stood up,
And all the dead lie down;
It was not night, for all the bells
Put out their tongues, for noon.

It was not frost, for on my flesh
I felt siroccos crawl,
Nor fire, for just my marble feet
Could keep a chancel cool.

And yet it tasted like them all;
The figures I have seen
Set orderly, for burial,
Reminded me of mine,

As if my life were shaven
And fitted to a frame,
And could not breathe without a key;
And I was like midnight, some,

When everything that ticked has stopped,
And space stares, all around,
Or grisly frosts, first autumn morns,
Repeal the beating ground.

But most like chaos,--stopless, cool,
Without a chance or spar,--
Or even a report of land
To justify despair."
— Emily Dickinson (I'm Nobody! Who Are You?)

"I'm Nobody! Who are you?
Are you – Nobody – too?
Then there's a pair of us?
Don't tell! they'd advertise – you know!

How dreary – to be – Somebody!
How public – like a Frog –
To tell one's name – the livelong June –
To an admiring Bog!"
— Emily Dickinson

"Pardon My Sanity In A World Insane"
— Emily Dickinson

"This is my letter to the world
That never wrote to me"
— Emily Dickinson

"Because I could not stop for Death –
He kindly stopped for me –
The Carriage held but just Ourselves –
And Immortality.

We slowly drove – He knew no haste
And I had put away
My labor and my leisure too,
For His Civility."
— Emily Dickinson

"Mine Enemy is growing old --
I have at last Revenge --
The Palate of the Hate departs --
If any would avenge

Let him be quick -- the Viand flits --
It is a faded Meat --
Anger as soon as fed is dead --
'Tis starving makes it fat"
— Emily Dickinson (I'm Nobody! Who Are You?)

"The Murder Burger is served right here.
You need not wait at the gate of Heaven for unleavened death.
You can be a goner on this very corner.
Mayonnaise, onions, dominance of flesh.
If you wish to eat it you must feed it.

"Yall come back soon."
"-- You bet." "
— Stan Rice (Singing Yet: New and Selected Poems)

"Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
And sings the tune without the words
And never stops at all."
— Emily Dickinson

"To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else."
— Emily Dickinson

"Dogs are better than human beings because they know but do not tell."
— Emily Dickinson

"How happy is the little stone
That rambles in the road alone,
And doesn't care about careers,
And exigencies never fears;
Whose coat of elemental brown
A passing universe put on;
And independent as the sun,
Associates or glows alone,
Fulfilling absolute decree
In casual simplicity."
— Emily Dickinson

"Life is a spell so exquisite that everything conspires to break it."
— Emily Dickinson

"I have the choice of being constantly active and happy or introspectively passive and sad. Or I can go mad by ricocheting in between."
— Sylvia Plath (The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath)

"I talk to God but the sky is empty."
— Sylvia Plath

"Nothing stinks like a pile of unpublished writing."
— Sylvia Plath

"I want to write because I have the urge to excel in one medium of translation and expression of life. I can't be satisfied with the colossal job of merely living. Oh, no, I must order life in sonnets and sestinas and provide a verbal reflector for my 60-watt lighted head."
— Sylvia Plath (The Journals of Sylvia Plath)

"Still I Rise


You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise."
— Maya Angelou

"For most of history, Anonymous was a woman."
— Virginia Woolf

"Writing is like sex. First you do it for love, then you do it for your friends, and then you do it for money."
— Virginia Woolf

"Why are women... so much more interesting to men than men are to women?"
— Virginia Woolf

"I have lost friends, some by death...others by sheer inability to cross the street."
— Virginia Woolf

"In the very depths of Hell, do not demons love one another?"
— Anne Rice

"Evil is a point of view. We are immortal. And what we have before us are the rich feasts that conscience cannot appreciate and mortal men cannot know without regret. God kills, and so shall we; indiscriminately He takes the richest and the poorest, and so shall we; for no creatures under God are as we are, none so like Him as ourselves, dark angels not confined to the limits of hell but wandering His earth and all its kingdoms."
— Anne Rice

"I'm Gentleman Death in silk and lace, come to put out the candles. The canker in the heart of the rose."
— Anne Rice (The Vampire Lestat)

"Come on, say it again. I'm a perfect devil. Tell me how bad I am. It makes me feel so good!"
— Anne Rice (The Queen of the Damned)

"Evil is always possible. And goodness is eternally difficult."
— Anne Rice (Interview With the Vampire)

"How shameful. How predictable! How insipid. And how sweet."
— Anne Rice

"If I haven't put that on a T-shirt, I'm going to. Actually, I really don't want to write anything that can't be put on a T-shirt. Actually I'd like to write only on T-shirts. Actually, I'd like to write whole novels on T-shirts. So you guys could say, 'I'm wearing chapter 8 of Lestat's new book, that's my favorite; oh I see you're wearing chapter 6-'"
— Anne Rice (Blood Canticle)

"If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain.
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain."
— Emily Dickinson

"The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience."
— Emily Dickinson

"I can wade Grief --
Whole Pools of it --
I'm used to that --
But the least push of Joy
Breaks up my feet --
And I tip -- drunken --
Let no Pebble -- smile --
'Twas the New Liquor --
That was all!"
— Emily Dickinson (Final Harvest: Poems)

"I SEE thee better in the dark,
I do not need a light.
The love of thee a prism be
Excelling violet.

I see thee better for the years
That hunch themselves between,
The miner’s lamp sufficient be
To nullify the mine.

And in the grave I see thee best—
Its little panels be
A-glow, all ruddy with the light
I held so high for thee!

What need of day to those whose dark
Hath so surpassing sun,
It seem it be continually
At the meridian?"
— Emily Dickinson

"I SEE thee better in the dark,
I do not need a light.
The love of thee a prism be
Excelling violet."
— Emily Dickinson

"It will yet be the proud boast of women that they never contributed a line to the Bible"
— George W. Foote

"It is much more a lack of fun which batters us than over abundance and indulgence"
— Raoul Vaneigem

"Some women I talk to are so frightened of growing old. I sense their desperation. They say things like I m not going to live to be old I m not going to live to be dependent. The message young women get from youth culture is that it s wonderful to be young and terrible to grow old. If you think about it it s an impossible dilemma how can you make a good start in life if you are being told at the same time how terrible the finish is Because of ageism many women don t fully commit themselves to living life until they can no longer pass as young. They live their lives with one foot in life and one foot outside it. With age you resolve that. I know the value of each day and I m living with both feet in life. I m living much more fully... The power of the old woman is that because she s outside the system she can attack. And I am determined to attack it. One of the ways in which I am particularly conscious of this stance is when I go down the street. People expect me to move over which means to step on the grass or off the curb. I just woke up one day to the fact that I was moving over. I have no idea how many years I ve been doing that. Now I never move over. I simply keep walking. And we hit full force because the other person is so sure that I am going to move over that he isn t even paying any attention and we simply ram each other. If it s a man with a woman he shows embarrassment because he s just knocked down a five foot seventy year old woman and so he quickly apologises. But he s startled he doesn t understand why I didn t move over he doesn t even know how I got there where I came from. I am invisible to him despite the fact that I am on my own side of the street simply refusing to give him that space he assumes is his"
— Barbara MacDonald

"There are people who have too much space between their ears, and given the time, do nothing but free fall forever inside their head. It's a spooky thing to be left alone inside an angry innerverse."
— James St. James

"I'll make you so in love with me, that everytime our lips touch, you'll die a little death."
— Ai Yazawa

"In my crazy world, above all others...you were the only one who was the ugliest. And you were the only one...who was the most beautiful.... This is the unspoken truth."
— Kaori Yuki

"Fuck! Is one expected to be a gentleman when one is stiff?"
— Donatien Alphonse François de Sade