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

Anne Sexton

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Anne Sexton
Age: 45 †
Born: 1928
Born: November 9
Died: 1974
Died: October 4
Poet
Writer
Newton
Massachusetts
Anne Gray Harvey
Beautiful
Shelf
Counting
Shelves
Silent
Waiting

More quotes by Anne Sexton

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It would be pleasant to be drunk.
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I try to take care and be gentle to them. Words and eggs must be handled with care. Once broken they are impossible things to repair.
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This is what poems are: with mercy for the greedy, they are the tongue's wrangle, the world's pottage, the rat's star.
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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.
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I like you your eyes are full of language. [Letter to Anne Clarke, July 3, 1964.]
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Despite my asbestos gloves, the cough is filling me with black, and a red powder seeps through my veins.
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Of course the New Testament is very small. Its mouth opens four times as out-of-date as a prehistoric monster, yet somehow man-made.
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Oh, darling, let your body in, let it tie you in, in comfort.
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I, in my brand new body, which was not a woman's yet, told the stars my questions and thought God could really see the heat and the painted light, elbows, knees, dreams, goodnight.
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The boys and girls are one tonight. They unbutton blouses. They unzip flies. They take off shoes. They turn off the light. The glimmering creatures are full of lies. They are eating each other. They are overfed. At night, alone, I marry the bed.
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I cannot walk an inch / without trying to walk to God.
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Fear / a motor, / pumps me around and around / until I fade slowly.
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When I lie down to love, old dwarf heart shakes her head. Like an imbecile she was born old.
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Suddenly I'm not half the girl I used to be. There's a shadow hanging over me . . . From me to you out of my electric devil.
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Inside many of us is a small old man who wants to get out.
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When the cow gives blood and the Christ is born we must all eat sacrifices. We must all eat beautiful women.
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But suicides have a special language. Like carpenters they want to know which tools. They never ask why build. Twice I have so simply declared myself, have possessed the enemy, eaten the enemy, have taken on his craft, his magic.
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Everyone in me is a bird I am beating all my wings
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The snow has quietness in it no songs, no smells, no shouts or traffic. When I speak my own voice shocks me.
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So I won't 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.
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