I must get back my soul from you; I am killing my flesh without it. - Sylvia Plath

I love people. Everybody. I love them, I think, as a stamp collector loves his collection. Every story, every incident, every bit of conversation is raw material for me. My love's not impersonal yet not wholly subjective either. I would like to be everyone, a cripple, a dying man, a whore, and then come back to write about my thoughts, my emotions, as that person. But I am not omniscient. I have to live my life, and it is the only one I'll ever have. And you cannot regard your own life with objective curiosity all the time...

How frail the human heart must be —
a mirrored pool of thought.

I am terrified by this dark thing
That sleeps in me;
All day I feel its soft, feathery turnings, its malignity.