Plath Quotes

“There is more than one good way to drown.”
― Sylvia Plath, Plath: Poems

“I didn't want any flowers, I only wanted
To lie with my hands turned up
and be utterly empty.
How free it is, you have no idea how free -
The peacefulness is so big it dazes you,
And it asks for nothing. ~ Tulips (1961)”
― Sylvia Plath, Plath: Poems

“Let me sit in a flowerpot,
The spiders won't notice.
My heart is a stopped geranium.”
― Sylvia Plath, Plath: Poems

“The storerooms are full of hearts.
This is the city of spare parts.”
― Sylvia Plath, Plath: Poems

“Can nothingness be so prodigal?”
― Sylvia Plath, Plath: Poems

“Perhaps you considered yourself an oracle,
Mouthpiece of the dead, or of some god or other.
Thirty years now I have labored
To dredge the silt from your throat.
I am none the wiser.”
― Sylvia Plath, Plath: Poems

“Your shelled bed I remember.
Father, this thick air is murderous.
I would breathe water.”
― Sylvia Plath, Plath: Poems

“I'm a riddle in nine syllables,
An elephant, a ponderous house,
A melon strolling on two tendrils.
O red fruit, ivory, fine timbers!
This loaf's big with its yeasty rising.
Money's new-minted in this fat purse.
I'm a means, a stage, a cow in calf.
I've eaten a bag of green apples,
Boarded the train there's no getting off.”
― Sylvia Plath, Plath: Poems

“You inherit white heather, a bee's wing,
Two suicides, the family wolves,
Hours of blankness.”
― Sylvia Plath, Plath: Poems

“I remember a blue eye,
A briefcase of tangerines.”
― Sylvia Plath, Plath: Poems

“The words in his book wormed off the pages.
Everything glittered like blank paper.”
― Sylvia Plath, Plath: Poems

“When I walk out, I am a great event.
I do not have to think, or even rehearse.
What happens in me will happen without attention.
The pheasant stands on the hill;
He is arranging his brown feathers.
I cannot help smiling at what it is I know.
Leaves and petals attend me. I am ready.”
― Sylvia Plath, Plath: Poems

“Through the mind like an oyster labors on and on, / A grain of sand is all we have”
― Sylvia Plath, Plath: Poems

“Five balls! Five bright brass balls!
To juggle with, my love, when the sky falls.”
― Sylvia Plath, Plath: Poems