Quotes by Anne Sexton

Only my books anoint me, and a few friends, those who reach into my veins.

I am God, la de dah.

Fee-fi-fo-fum -Now Im borrowed.Now Im numb.

Live or die, but dont poison everything...Well, deaths been herefor a long time --it has a hell of a lotto do with helland suspicion of the eyeand the religious objectsand how I mourned themwhen they were made obsceneby my dwarf-hearts doodle.The chief ingredientis mutilation.And mud, day after day,mud like a ritual,and the baby on the platter,cooked but still human,cooked also with little maggots,sewn onto it maybe by somebodys mother,the damn bitch!Even so,I kept right on going on,a sort of human statement,lugging myself as ifI were a sawed-off bodyin the trunk, the steamer trunk.This became perjury of the soul.It became an outright lieand even though I dressed the bodyit was still naked, still killed.It was caughtin the first place at birth,like a fish.But I play it, dressed it up,dressed it up like somebodys doll.Is life something you play?And all the time wanting to get rid of it?And further, everyone yelling at youto shut up. And no wonder!People dont like to be toldthat youre sickand then be forcedto watchyoucomedown with the hammer.Today life opened inside me like an eggand there insideafter considerable diggingI found the answer.What a bargain!There was the sun,her yolk moving feverishly,tumbling her prize --and you realize she does this daily!Id known she was a purifierbut I hadnt thoughtshe was solid,hadnt known she was an answer.God! Its a dream,lovers sprouting in the yardlike celery stalksand better,a husband straight as a redwood,two daughters, two sea urchings,picking roses off my hackles.If Im on fire they dance around itand cook marshmallows.And if Im icethey simply skate on mein little ballet costumes.Here,all along,thinking I was a killer,anointing myself dailywith my little poisons.But no.Im an empress.I wear an apron.My typewriter writes.It didnt break the way it warned.Even crazy, Im as niceas a chocolate bar.Even with the witches gymnasticsthey trust my incalculable city,my corruptible bed.O dearest three,I make a soft reply.The witch comes onand you paint her pink.I come with kisses in my hoodand the sun, the smart one,rolling in my arms.So I say Liveand turn my shadow three times roundto feed our puppies as they come,the eight Dalmatians we didnt drown,despite the warnings: The abort! The destroy!Despite the pails of water that waited,to drown them, to pull them down like stones,they came, each one headfirst, blowing bubbles the color of cataract-blueand fumbling for the tiny tits.Just last week, eight Dalmatians,3/4 of a lb., lined up like cord woodeachlike abirch tree.I promise to love more if they come,because in spite of crueltyand the stuffed railroad cars for the ovens,I am not what I expected. Not an Eichmann.The poison just didnt take.So I wont hang around in my hospital shift,repeating The Black Mass and all of it.I say Live, Live because of the sun,the dream, the excitable gift.

That’s what I do: I make coffee and occasionally succumb to suicidal nihilism. But you shouldn’t worry — poetry is still first. Cigarettes and alcohol follow

The grass as bristly and stout as chives and me wondering when the ground will break and me wondering how anything fragile survives

Many women are singing together of this: one is in a shoe factory cursing the machine, one is at the aquarium tending a seal, one is dull at the wheel of her Ford, one is at the toll gate collecting,one is tying the cord of a calf in Arizona, one is straddling a cello in Russia,one is shifting pots on the stove in Egypt,one is painting her bedroom walls moon color, one is dying but remembering a breakfast, one is stretching on her mat in Thailand, one is wiping the ass of her child,one is staring out the window of a train in the middle of Wyoming and one is anywhere and some are everywhere and all seem to be singing, although some can not sing a note.

Those moments before a poem comes, when the heightened awareness comes over you, and you realize a poem is buried there somewhere, you prepare yourself. I run around, you know, kind of skipping around the house, marvelous elation. It’s as though I could fly.

Some women marry houses.

Poetry led me by the hand out of madness.

Put your mouthful of words away and come with me to watch the lilies open in such a field, growing there like yachts, slowly steering their petals without nurses or clocks.

I am, to be sure, afraid that if you knew me that you wouldn’t love me. But this must be faced…I fear it in any relationship. Thus I am perhaps afraid to reveal facts about things…or to say too much for fear if I make too much noise you’ll drift away, pull down the shade of your ivory tower…and after that. Afraid, I guess, that I’ll loose you…I keep losing people.

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

The rest of my room is book shelves. I hoard books. They are people who do not leave.

And what of the dead? They lie without shoesin the stone boats. They are more like stonethan the sea would be if it stopped. They refuseto be blessed, throat, eye and knucklebone.

I’d won the worldbut like aforsaken explorer,I’d lostmy map.

CourageIt is in the small things we see it.The childs first step,as awesome as an earthquake.The first time you rode a bike,wallowing up the sidewalk.The first spanking when your heartwent on a journey all alone.When they called you crybabyor poor or fatty or crazyand made you into an alien,you drank their acidand concealed it.Later,if you faced the death of bombs and bulletsyou did not do it with a banner,you did it with only a hat tocover your heart.You did not fondle the weakness inside youthough it was there.Your courage was a small coalthat you kept swallowing.If your buddy saved youand died himself in so doing,then his courage was not courage,it was love; love as simple as shaving soap.

Taking into consideration all your lovelinesswhy cant you burn your bootsoles and yourdraft card? How can you sit there saying yesto war? Youll be a pauper when you die, soreboy. Dead, while I still live at our addresss.Oh my brother, why do you keep making planswhen I am at seizures of hearts and hands?Come dance the dance, the Papa-Mama dance;bring costumes from the suitcase pasted Ille de France, the S.S. Gripsholm. Papas London Harness case he took abroad and kept i our attic laced with old leather straps for storage and hisscholars robes, black licorice - that metamorphosiswith its crimson blood. The Papa and Mama Dance

We were fair game but we have kept out of the cesspool. We are strong. We are the good ones. Do not discover us for we lie together all in green like pond weeds. Hold me, my young dear, hold me.

Depression is boring, I thinkand I would do better to makesome soup and light up the cave.