Quote

To be without God is to be a snake / who wants to swallow an elephant.

Anne Sexton

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Anne Sexton
Age: 45 †
Born: 1928
Born: November 9
Died: 1974
Died: October 4
Poet
Writer
Newton
Massachusetts
Anne Gray Harvey
Snakes
God
Wants
Without
Snake
Elephant
Swallow
Elephants

More quotes by Anne Sexton

Image
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.
Anne Sexton
Image
Poems aren't postcards to send home.
Anne Sexton
Image
The grass as bristly and stout as chives and me wondering when the ground will break and me wondering how anything fragile survives
Anne Sexton
Image
But my future is a secret. / It is as shy as a mole.
Anne Sexton
Image
Come, my pretender, my fritter, my bubbler, my chicken biddy! Oh succulent one, it is but one turn in the road and I would be a cannibal!
Anne Sexton
Image
Sometimes I fly like an eagle but with the wings of a wren
Anne Sexton
Image
In a letter (no matter how quickly it is written or honestly or freely or lovingly) it is more possible to be loving and lovable, more possible to reach out and to take in ... I feel I have somehow deceived you into thinking this is really a human relationship. It is a letter relationship between humans.
Anne Sexton
Image
It was as if a morning-glory had bloomed in her throat, and all that blue and small pollen ate into my heart, violent and religious
Anne Sexton
Image
Pulling off the fat diamond engagement ring, pulling off the elopement wedding ring, and holding them, clicking them in thumb and forefinger, the indent of twenty-five years, like a tiny rip leaving its mark.
Anne Sexton
Image
God owns heaven but He craves the earth.
Anne Sexton
Image
When I lie down to love, old dwarf heart shakes her head. Like an imbecile she was born old.
Anne Sexton
Image
I must always forget how one word is able to pick out another, to manner another, until I have got something I might have said... but did not.
Anne Sexton
Image
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.
Anne Sexton
Image
Yes I try to kill myself in small amounts, an innocuous occupation. Actually I'm hung up on it.
Anne Sexton
Image
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.
Anne Sexton
Image
Only my books anoint me, and a few friends, those who reach into my veins.
Anne Sexton
Image
Everyone has left me except my muse, that good nurse. She stays in my hand, a mild white mouse.
Anne Sexton
Image
It doesn't matter who my father was it matters who I remember he was.
Anne Sexton
Image
Daylight is nobody's friend. God comes in like a landlord and flashes on his brassy lamp.
Anne Sexton
Image
Take your foot out of the graveyard, they are busy being dead.
Anne Sexton