Anne Sexton Quotes

“As it has been said: Love and a cough cannot be concealed. Even a small cough. Even a small love.”

“Watch out for intellect, because it knows so much it knows nothing and leaves you hanging upside down, mouthing knowledge as your heart falls out of your mouth.”

“Put your ear down close to your soul and listen hard.”

“Anne, I dont want to live. . . . Now listen, life is lovely, but I Cant Live It. I cant even explain. I know how silly it sounds . . . but if you knew how it Felt. To be alive, yes, alive, but not be able to live it. Ay thats the rub. I am like a stone that lives . . . locked outside of all thats real. . . . Anne, do you know of such things, can you hear???? I wish, or think I wish, that I were dying of something for then I could be brave, but to be not dying, and yet . . . and yet to [be] behind a wall, watching everyone fit in where I cant, to talk behind a gray foggy wall, to live but to not reach or to reach wrong . . . to do it all wrong . . . believe me, (can you?) . . . whats wrong. I want to belong. Im like a jew who ends up in the wrong country. Im not a part. Im not a member. Im frozen.”

“As for me, I am a watercolor. I wash off.”

“I am stuffing your mouth with your promises and watching you vomit them out upon my face.”

“Even so, I must admire your skill. You are so gracefully insane.”

“I am alone here in my own mind. There is no map and there is no road. It is one of a kind just as yours is.”

“Live or die, but dont poison everything.”

“I like you; your eyes are full of language." [Letter to Anne Clarke, July 3, 1964.]”