Quotes from Sylvia Plath

I can only hazard. In the back of my mind there are bombs falling, women and children screaming, but I can't describe it now.

I'm so jealous I can't speak. Nineteen years, and I hadn't been out of New England except for this trip to New York. It was my first big chance, but here I was, sitting back and letting it run through my fingers like so much water.

I write and think and study perfectly when with him; apart, I'm split and only can work properly in brief, stoic spells. . . .

Every world crowns its own kings, laurels it own gods. A Hans Anderson book cover opens its worlds: the snowqueen, bluewhite as ice, flies in a sleigh through her snow-thick air: our hearts are ice. Always: sludge, offal, shit against palaces of diamond. That man could dream god and heaven: how mud labors. We burn in our own fire.

Van egy nap, amelyet sosem fogsz elfelejteni, bármennyire próbálod is. Mindig eszedbe jut, amikor eljön a nyár, s már eléggé meleg az idÅ' az evezéshez. Amikor itt az elsÅ' kéklÅ' júniusi nap, kél az emlék, elevenen, kristálytisztán, mintha könnyeken át látnád… (Egy júniusi nap)

I get a little frightened when I think of life slipping through my fingers like water…

I went there to see him instead of to Yale and it was there I found out how he had fooled me all those years and what a hypocrite he was. I found out on the day we saw the baby born.

The tulips should be behind bars like dangerous animals; They are opening like the mouth of some great African cat, And I am aware of my heart: it opens and closes Its bowl of red blooms out of sheer love of me. The water I taste is warm and salt, like the sea, And comes from a country far away as health. --from Tulips, written 18 March 1961

Sabía que debía estarle agradecida a la señora Guinea, sólo que no podía sentir nada. Si la señora Guinea me hubiera dado un pasaje a Europa, o un viaje alrededor del mundo, no hubiera habido la menor diferencia para mí, porque donde quiera que estuviera sentada -en la cubierta de un barco o en la terraza de un café en París o en Bangkok- estaría sentada bajo la misma campana de cristal, agitándome en mi propio aire viciado.

I don't see what women see in other women,' I'd told Doctor Nolan in my interview that noon. 'What does a woman see in a woman that she can't see in a man?' Doctor Nolan paused. Then she said, 'Tenderness.' That shut me up.

Betsy started to tell about the male and female corn in Kansas. She got so excited about that damn corn even the producer had tears in his eyes, only he couldn't use any of it, unfortunately, he said.

Intoxicated with madness, I'm in love with my sadness.

He kept smiling, as if the corners of his mouth were strung up on invisible wire.

Como é que eu poderia escrever sobre a vida se nunca tivera um caso amoroso ou um filho ou vira alguém morrer? Uma garota que eu conhecia havia acabado de ganhar um prêmio por um conto sobre suas aventuras entre os pigmeus na África. Como é que eu podia competir com esse tipo de coisa?

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.

?udia sú totiž vytvorení zvä?ša z prachu a mne neÅ¡lo do hlavy, pre?o by lie?enie vÅ¡etkého toho prachu malo byÃ…Â¥ lepÅ¡ie ako písanie básní, ktoré si tí ?udia zapamätajú a v duchu si ich opakujú, ke? sú neÅ¡Å¥astní alebo chorí, alebo nemôžu spaÃ…Â¥.

To the person in the bell jar, blank and stopped as a dead baby, the world itself is a bad dream... I remembered everything... Maybe forgetfulness, like a kind snow, should numb and cover them. But they were a part of me. They were my landscape.

I wondered why I couldn't go the whole way doing what I should any more. This made me sad and tired. Then I wondered why I couldn't go the whole way doing what I shouldn't

ÄŒo si myslím, že so mnou nie je v poriadku? Znelo to, akoby v skuto?nosti so mnou bolo vÅ¡etko v poriadku, ako keby som si len myslela, že so mnou nie?o nie je v poriadku.

So I perversely circle the late stars, drowsier and drowsier, sleepily longing for something.

Buddy said he figured there must be something in poetry if a girl like me spent all her days over it, so each time we met I read him some poetry and explained to him what I found in it.

wondered why I couldn't go the whole way doing what I should any more. This made me sad and tired. Then I wondered why I couldn't go the whole way doing what I shouldn't, the way Doreen did, and this made me even sadder and more tired.

If Mrs. Guinea had given me a ticket to Europe, or a round-the-world cruise, it wouldn't have made one scrap of difference to me, because wherever I sat--on the deck of a ship or at a street cafe in Paris or Bangkok--I would be sitting under the same glass bell jar, stewing in my own sour air.

Bridí sa mi predstava, že ma nejaký muž bude maÃ…Â¥ pod palcom. Muži nemajú na tomto svete nijaké starosti, kým ja budem maÃ…Â¥ nad hlavou dieÃ…Â¥a ako ve?kú palicu, aby som držala hubu a krok.