Anne Sexton Quotes - Page 9

I tell it stories now and then and feed it images like honey. I will not speculate today with poems that think they're money.

My death from the wrists, two name tags, blood worn like a corsage to bloom one on the left and one on the right.

Watch out for love (unless it is true, and every part of you says yes including the toes), it will wrap you up like a mummy, and your scream won't be heard and none of your running will run.

This is what poems are: with mercy for the greedy, they are the tongue's wrangle, the world's pottage, the rat's star.

Father, you died once, salted down at fifty-nine, packed down like a big snow angel, wasn't that enough?

Thief!- how did you crawl into, crawl down alone into the death I wanted so badly and for so long.

The soul was not cured, it was as full as a clothes closet of dresses that did not fit.

As a writer one has to take the chance on being a fool.

And thus Snow White became the prince's bride. The wicked queen was invited to the wedding feast and when she arrived there were red-hot iron shoes, in the manner of red-hot roller skates, clamped upon her feet.

O fallen angel, the companion within me, whisper something holy before you pinch me into the grave.

Once I was beautiful. Now I am myself, Counting this row and that row of moccasins Waiting on the silent shelf.

Thumbs grow into my throat. I wear slaps like a spot of rouge.

I imitatea memory of beliefthat I do not own.

Take a woman talking, purging herself with rhymes, drumming words out like a typewriter, planting words in you like grass seed. You'll move off.

I leave you, home, when I'm ripped from the doorstep by commerce or fate. Then I submit to the awful subway of the world.

Now I am just an elderly lady who is full of spleen, who humps around greater Boston in a God-awful hat, who never lived and yet outlived her time, hating men and dogs and Democrats.

The future is a fog that is still hanging out over the sea, a boat that floats home or does not. The trade winds blow me, and I do not know where the land is; the waves fold over each other; they are in love with themselves; sleeping in their own skin; and I float over them and I do not know about tomorrow.

Craft is a trick you make up to let you write the poem.

It's all a matter of history. Brandy is no solace. Librium only lies me down like a dead snow queen. Yes! I am still the criminal.

you see, we live in a cold climate and are not permitted to kiss on the street so I made up a song that wasn't true. I made up a song called Marriage.

Jewels! Today each twig is important, each ring, each infection, each form is all that the gods must have meant.

Look to your heart that flutters in and out like a moth. God is not indifferent to your need. You have a thousand prayers but God has one.

My heart is on a budget. It keeps me on the brink.

The body is a damn hard thing to kill.

Every time I get happy the Nana-hex comes through. Birds turn into plumber's tools, a sonnet turns into a dirty joke, a wind turns into a tracheotomy, a boat turns into a corpse.