Sylvia Plath Quotations

Well, I (for once) am at a loss for words. There's really nothing new, or worthy of blog posting. I suppose that I could write about the mundane or the progress of the scarf that I'm knitting. But, I think that I'll save you the trouble and time. Today, I think that I'll post some quotations by one of my favorite authors/poets - Sylvia Plath. If you know anything about American poetry, you have some idea - to any degree - of who this woman was. Crazy? Yes. Poignant? Yes. Suicidal? Absolutely. But, I have to say, I appreciate the way she views human existence. She makes life seem so fragile, so full, and yet so empty. Deep thinker, that I can appreciate.

Now as a Christian, life is full because of Christ. It has limitless meaning and depth. But to Ms. Plath, it wasn't worth living. She ended up committing suicide. Tragic, no? Nevertheless, she remains one of my favorite feminine voices and authors. The point that I'm trying to make is this: I love her work. Little quips of hers are fantastic. I'm putting snippets in this post to whet your appetite. Enjoy.

"Death must be so beautiful. To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one's head, and listen to silence. To have no yesterday, and no to-morrow. To forget time, to forgive life, to be at peace."

"I can never read all the books I want; I can never be all the people I want and live all the lives I want. I can never train myself in all the skills I want. And why do I want? I want to live and feel all the shades, tones and variations of mental and physical experience possible in life. And I am horribly limited."

"I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet."

"If neurotic is wanting two mutually exclusive things at one and the same time, then I'm neurotic as hell. I'll be flying back and forth between one mutually exclusive thing and another for the rest of my days."