Pain, Parties, Work Quotes

“She was restless. She drove a little too fast, swam a little too far offshore. She hitchhiked. She skied recklessly. While Sylvia's rabid perfectionism was very real, she was far from the good-girl persona she worked so hard to cultivate.”
― Elizabeth Winder, Pain, Parties, Work: Sylvia Plath in New York, Summer 1953

“...she could not stick by the golden mean...was always anxious to experiment in extremes...to find out what was enough by indulging herself in too much." (Gordon Lameyer)”
― Elizabeth Winder, Pain, Parties, Work: Sylvia Plath in New York, Summer 1953

“Before New York, the cracks were already there, but now they began to split open and gape, and the difference between how a thing or a place or a person appears and the reality becomes alarmingly visible, garish.”
― Elizabeth Winder, Pain, Parties, Work: Sylvia Plath in New York, Summer 1953

“Sylvia rarely flattered the men in her life- she envied them. She was far more likely to compete with a man than a woman. In her journal she describes this jealousy of which she is painfully aware; "It is an envy born of the desire to be active and doing, not passive and listening." She craved the "double life" of men, who could enjoy career, sex, and family. "I can pretend to forget my envy," she writes, "no matter, it is there, insidious, malignant, latent.”
― Elizabeth Winder, Pain, Parties, Work: Sylvia Plath in New York, Summer 1953

“Her romances often seemed like dalliances; she enjoyed male company and blossomed in its presence, but she did not appear to care deeply about any of the men [Steiner]”
― Elizabeth Winder, Pain, Parties, Work: Sylvia Plath in New York, Summer 1953

“For years I wondered what was her curious power, her ability to attract all kinds of people to her and to use them for her own ends, often with their knowledge. i think it was that people liked watching and being with someone who enjoyed life as much as Sylvia seemed to enjoy it. She squeezed all the juice from the orange, or, to change the figure, drained the cup to the leaves, the very dregs.”
― Elizabeth Winder, Pain, Parties, Work: Sylvia Plath in New York, Summer 1953

“Out of the blue Sylvia said, ‘People are like boxes. You would like to open them up and see what’s inside, but you can’t.’ Sylvia was interested in people and recognizing how individuals create their own kind of camouflage- the ‘lids on the boxes’, so to speak.”
― Elizabeth Winder, Pain, Parties, Work: Sylvia Plath in New York, Summer 1953

“I suppose that was an example of close attention to detail that is common to writers and artists. It is imperative, whether consciously or not, that one observe the vast as well as the infinitesimal in order to create the image or choose accurate words that ring true.”
― Elizabeth Winder, Pain, Parties, Work: Sylvia Plath in New York, Summer 1953

“When I was doing the Mademoiselle application my husband would peer over my shoulder and say, "What are you doing competing with the best brains in the country? Why don't you just wash the dishes?" When the telegram came from Mademoiselle, I ran outside and shouted, "Guess who has the best brains in the country?”
― Elizabeth Winder, Pain, Parties, Work: Sylvia Plath in New York, Summer 1953

“Sylvia quotes Dick as telling her: "I am afraid the demands of wifehood and motherhood would preoccupy you too much to allow you to do the painting and writing you want." Dick was sharp enough to understand that the bright flame that drew him to Sylvia disqualified her from his future. He would not allow Sylvia- or any woman- to outshine him.”
― Elizabeth Winder, Pain, Parties, Work: Sylvia Plath in New York, Summer 1953

“With headlines like "Marry Now or Never," the specter of marriage loomed. It was a constant fear, a threat, a reminder. But Sylvia wasn't baited by those pretty tales of line and hook: the bride-white cake, the prime rib and steak, marriage- that bleak fable- with Husband cast as warden, the future dead clear and blighted.”
― Elizabeth Winder, Pain, Parties, Work: Sylvia Plath in New York, Summer 1953

“The serious Sylvia was agonizing over the execution of the Rosenbergs and McCarthyism; others were delighting to dream over trousseau lingerie at Vanity Fair's showroom.”
― Elizabeth Winder, Pain, Parties, Work: Sylvia Plath in New York, Summer 1953

“Perhaps some guest editors would keep Ethel and Julius Rosenberg in their peripheral vision. But Sylvia recognized their execution as the most extreme and gruesome example of McCarthy's red-baiting paranoia.”
― Elizabeth Winder, Pain, Parties, Work: Sylvia Plath in New York, Summer 1953

“Judgement is so often a thwarted, frustrated expression of envy.”
― Elizabeth Winder, Pain, Parties, Work: Sylvia Plath in New York, Summer 1953

“However vivid they might be, past images and future delights did not protect Sylvia from the present, which "rules despotic over pale shadows of past and future". That was Sylvia's genius and her Panic Bird- her total lack of nostalgia. She had no armor. This left her especially vulnerable in New York, where she was removed from the context of her life, severed from that reassuring arc.”
― Elizabeth Winder, Pain, Parties, Work: Sylvia Plath in New York, Summer 1953

“All year long Sylvia had been trying to overthrow her guileless, college girl image. She knew "cottons with big full skirts and university personalities" would have looked hopelessly naive in New York. Sylvia wanted to be hard and urban.”
― Elizabeth Winder, Pain, Parties, Work: Sylvia Plath in New York, Summer 1953

“New clothes left Sylvia reeling with happiness. For Sylvia, a shopping list was a poem. She always shopped alone - it suited her deliberate nature and the artistic joy with which she approached all things aesthetic.”
― Elizabeth Winder, Pain, Parties, Work: Sylvia Plath in New York, Summer 1953

“These were the new girls of New York- complete with rapid heartbeats from too much nicotine and coffee. They were nervous and fluttery but completely alluring- the new face of urban femininity.”
― Elizabeth Winder, Pain, Parties, Work: Sylvia Plath in New York, Summer 1953

“Sylvia had begun her month in New York with princessy pomp and fanfare….Her departure on June 27 was entirely different. She left New York shaken, depleted, and utterly alone.”
― Elizabeth Winder, Pain, Parties, Work: Sylvia Plath in New York, Summer 1953

“New York is unruly, tangled. The city woos first, then mangles, then pastes back together in a fresh, dazzling mosaic.”
― Elizabeth Winder, Pain, Parties, Work: Sylvia Plath in New York, Summer 1953

“It was in this atmosphere of boozy wistfulness and dizzy exhaustion that Sylvia- along with Carol LeVarn- took her suitcase to the Barbizon roof and tossed each slip, stocking, sheath, and skirt into the night sky. "We took the elevator to the roof," recalls Carol, who refrained from tossing her own clothes off the Barbizon. "We stood there by the empty pool, which was all lit up. We were laughing. All this absurd phony fun we were having was over….We were just kind of giddy. I didn't see it as Sylvia throwing off a false self. It was just fun- a 'good-bye to all that' sort of thing.”
― Elizabeth Winder, Pain, Parties, Work: Sylvia Plath in New York, Summer 1953

“That none discussed their doubts, that they assumed everyone else was just having a grand time of it and felt at ease and enjoying the ride, was perhaps the most toxic element to this particular kind of noisy loneliness.”
― Elizabeth Winder, Pain, Parties, Work: Sylvia Plath in New York, Summer 1953

“Sylvia possessed a deeply conditioned respect for authority. She wanted desperately to live up to the expectations of a society that viewed her as a bright, charming, enormously talented disciple of bourgeois conformity. On the other hand, she ached to experience life in all its grim and beautiful complexity. The poetic eye was always at work examining the nuance and measuring obscure detail, turning conversation into ultimatum (Steiner)”
― Elizabeth Winder, Pain, Parties, Work: Sylvia Plath in New York, Summer 1953

“The very act of accepting her position at Mademoiselle was an act of open defiance against Dick Norton, his entire family, and the gendered expectations of midcentury America.”
― Elizabeth Winder, Pain, Parties, Work: Sylvia Plath in New York, Summer 1953

“And is not all of life material- based on the material- permeated by the material? Should not one learn, gladly, to utilize the beauty of the fine material? I do not speak of the gross crudities of soporific television, of loud brash convertibles and vulgar display- but rather of grace and line and refinement- and there are wonderful and exciting things that only money can buy, such as theater tickets, books, paintings, travel, lovely clothes- and why deny them when one can have them? The only problem is to work, to stay awake mentally and physically, and NEVER become mentally, physically, spiritually flabby or over complacent!”
― Elizabeth Winder, Pain, Parties, Work: Sylvia Plath in New York, Summer 1953

“Sylvia’s inherent appreciation for beauty as both artist and consumer is evident in her journals and letters…….she wrote beautifully about clothes. She wrote about them with irony and wit mixed in with all the rococo prettiness.”
― Elizabeth Winder, Pain, Parties, Work: Sylvia Plath in New York, Summer 1953

“Sylvia would have taken it seriously- so strong was her devotion to the innate intelligence of form. Those pretty tools like glue and pens, pasting together look-books – for Sylvia it would have been like toy making or arranging jewels. Unfortunately, Sylvia’s flair for design and graphics went unnoticed by the Mademoiselle staff, who had already pigeonholed her as a “writer”.”
― Elizabeth Winder, Pain, Parties, Work: Sylvia Plath in New York, Summer 1953

“Cyrilly expected Sylvia – as an intelligent and ambitious young woman – to walk around pale-mouthed and flat-shoed. She saw intellectual inclinations and a taste for fashion as mutually exclusive and assumed that Sylvia would not mind missing fashion shows to work late in the office.”
― Elizabeth Winder, Pain, Parties, Work: Sylvia Plath in New York, Summer 1953

“Life is amazingly simplified,” she wrote in her journal, “now that the recalcitrant forsythia has at last decided to come and blurt out springtime in petalled fountains of yellow. In spite of reams of papers to be written, life has snitched a cocaine sniff of sun-worship and salt air, and all looks promising.” She already adored New York.”
― Elizabeth Winder, Pain, Parties, Work: Sylvia Plath in New York, Summer 1953

“Her attachment to language was earthy, physical, and immediate. Pretty words you could eat.”
― Elizabeth Winder, Pain, Parties, Work: Sylvia Plath in New York, Summer 1953