Sylvia Plath Quotes

American poet and writer (1932–1963)

Sylvia Plath (27 October 1932 – 11 February 1963) was an American poet, novelist, short story writer, and essayist. She was the first wife of Ted Hughes.

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Pen Names: Victoria Lucas

Alternative Names: Sylvia Plath Hughes

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You are a dream; I hope I never meet you.

I felt myself melting into the shadows like the negative of a person I'd never seen before in my life.

"Is it the sea you hear in me?
Its dissatisfactions?
Or the voice of nothing, that was your madness?

Love is a shadow.
How you lie and cry after it. — from "Elm", written 19 April 1962"

I need a father. I need a mother. I need some older, wiser being to cry to. I talk to God, but the sky is empty.

I hated men because they didn’t stay around and love me like a father: I could prick holes in them & show they were no father-material. I made them propose and then showed them they hadn’t a chance. I hated men because they didn’t have to suffer like a woman did. They could die or go to Spain. They could have fun while a woman had birth pangs. They could gamble while a woman skimped on the butter on the bread. Men, nasty lousy men.

How we need that security. How we need another soul to cling to, another body to keep us warm. To rest and trust; to give your soul in confidence: I need this, I need someone to pour myself into.

"I have taken a pill to kill
The thin
Papery feeling. — from "Cut", written 24 October 1962"

I felt dumb and subdued. Every time I tried to concentrate, my mind glided off, like a skater, into a large empty space, and pirouetted there, absently.

Why do we electrocute men for murdering an individual and then pin a purple heart on them for mass slaughter of someone arbitrarily labeled “enemy?

"I am afraid of getting older. I am afraid of getting married. Spare me from cooking three meals a day — spare me from the relentless cage of routine and rote. I want to be free. (...) I want, I think, to be omniscient… I think I would like to call myself "The girl who wanted to be God." Yet if I were not in this body, where would I be — perhaps I am destined to be classified and qualified. But, oh, I cry out against it. I am I — I am powerful — but to what extent? I am I."

"I have suffered the atrocity of sunsets. — from "Elm", written 19 April 1962"

"At twenty I tried to die
And get back, back, back to you.
I thought even the bones would do. — from "Daddy", written 12 October 1962"

I may never be happy, but tonight I am content.

I knew you'd decide to be all right again.

Whenever I'm sad I'm going to die, or so nervous I can't sleep, or in love with somebody I won't be seeing for a week, I slump down just so far and then I say: 'I'll go take a hot bath.