Meredith Eldred > Meredith's Quotes

“The blood jet is poetry,
There is no stopping it.

--from "Kindness", written 1 February 1963”
― Sylvia Plath, Ariel

“The stuff of nightmare is their plain bread. They butter it with pain. They set their clocks by deathwatch beetles, and thrive the centuries. They were the men with the leather-ribbon whips who sweated up the Pyramids seasoning it with other people's salt and other people's cracked hearts. They coursed Europe on the White Horses of the Plague. They whispered to Caesar that he was mortal, then sold daggers at half-price in the grand March sale. Some must have been lazing clowns, foot props for emperors, princes, and epileptic popes. Then out on the road, Gypsies in time, their populations grew as the world grew, spread, and there was more delicious variety of pain to thrive on. The train put wheels under them and here they run down the log road out of the Gothic and baroque; look at their wagons and coaches, the carving like medieval shrines, all of it stuff once drawn by horses, mules, or, maybe, men.”
― Ray Bradbury, Something Wicked This Way Comes

“I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)”
― Sylvia Plath

“I desire the things which will destroy me in the end.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

“Say that you don’t love him!” Amarantha shrieked, and the blood on my hands became the blood of that rabbit—became the blood of what I had lost.
But I wouldn’t say it. Because loving Tamlin was the only thing I had left, the only thing I couldn’t sacrifice.
A path cleared through my red-and-black vision. I found Tamlin’s eyes—wide as he crawled toward Amarantha, watching me die, and unable to save me while his wound slowly healed, while she still gripped his power.
Amarantha had never intended for me to live, never intended to let him go.
“Amarantha, stop this,” Tamlin begged at her feet as he clutched the gaping wound in his chest. “Stop. I’m sorry—I’m sorry for what I said about Clythia all those years ago. Please.”
― Sarah J. Maas, A Court of Thorns and Roses

“I want
To do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.”
― Pablo Neruda, Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair

“As if you were on fire from within.

The moon lives in the lining of your skin.”
― Pablo Neruda

“For she had eyes and chose me.”
― William Shakespeare, Othello

“Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind; And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind. Nor hath love's mind of any judgment taste; Wings and no eyes figure unheedy haste: And therefore is love said to be a child, Because in choice he is so oft beguil'd.”
― William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream

“I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.

Write, for instance: "The night is full of stars,
and the stars, blue, shiver in the distance."

The night wind whirls in the sky and sings.

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

On nights like this, I held her in my arms.
I kissed her so many times under the infinite sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her.
How could I not have loved her large, still eyes?

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
To think I don't have her. To feel that I've lost her.

To hear the immense night, more immense without her.
And the poem falls to the soul as dew to grass.

What does it matter that my love couldn't keep her.
The night is full of stars and she is not with me.

That's all. Far away, someone sings. Far away.
My soul is lost without her.

As if to bring her near, my eyes search for her.
My heart searches for her and she is not with me.

The same night that whitens the same trees.
We, we who were, we are the same no longer.

I no longer love her, true, but how much I loved her.
My voice searched the wind to touch her ear.

Someone else's. She will be someone else's. As she once
belonged to my kisses.
Her voice, her light body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, true, but perhaps I love her.
Love is so short and oblivion so long.

Because on nights like this I held her in my arms,
my soul is lost without her.

Although this may be the last pain she causes me,
and this may be the last poem I write for her.”
― Pablo Neruda

“In this part of the story I am the one who
dies, the only one, and I will die of love because I love you,
because I love you, Love, in fire and in blood.”
― Pablo Neruda, 100 Love Sonnets

“And I, infinitesima­l being,
drunk with the great starry
void,
likeness, image of
mystery,
I felt myself a pure part
of the abyss,
I wheeled with the stars,
my heart broke loose on the wind.”
― Pablo Neruda, 100 Love Sonnets

“Deceptive things, roses. Pretty, and delicate, it's no wonder everyone wants to pluck them. Such a good thing they've got thorns to keep them safe.”
― Cambria Covell

“Tonight I can write the saddest lines
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.”
― Pablo Neruda, Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair

“Yours is the light by which my spirit's born: - you are my sun, my moon, and all my stars.”
― E.E. Cummings

“Do not swear by the moon, for she changes constantly. then your love would also change.”
― William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

“Tell me the story..
About how the sun loved the moon so much..
That she died every night..
Just to let him breathe...”
― Hanako Ishii

“If I offer you the moon on a string, will you give me a kiss, too?" - Lucien Vanserra”
― Sarah J. Maas, A Court of Thorns and Roses

“The moon is my mother. She is not sweet like Mary.
Her blue garments unloose small bats and owls.”
― Sylvia Plath, Ariel

“I hate writing, I love having written.”
― Dorothy Parker

“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”
― Ernest Hemingway

“All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.”
― Ernest Hemingway

“they asked "do you love her to death?"

i said "speak of her over my grave and watch how she brings me back to life”
― Mahmoud Darwish

“If you're going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don't even start. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives and maybe even your mind. It could mean not eating for three or four days. It could mean freezing on a park bench. It could mean jail. It could mean derision. It could mean mockery--isolation. Isolation is the gift. All the others are a test of your endurance, of how much you really want to do it. And, you'll do it, despite rejection and the worst odds. And it will be better than anything else you can imagine. If you're going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like that. You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It's the only good fight there is.”
― Charles Bukowski, What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire

“She's mad, but she's magic. There's no lie in her fire.”
― Charles Bukowski

“I was like, Am I gay? Am I straight? And I realized...I'm just slutty. Where's my parade?”
― Margaret Cho

“for a woman knows the face of the man she loves like a sailor knows the open sea”
― Honore de Balzac

“I'm a great poet. I don't put my poems on paper: they consist of actions and feelings.”
― Honoré de Balzac, Père Goriot

“Who is to decide which is the grimmer sight: withered hearts, or empty skulls?”
― Honoré de Balzac, Père Goriot

“The more I read, the more I acquire, the more certain I am that I know nothing.”
― Voltaire