Quote

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

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
Poetry
Wrangle
Stars
Rats
World
Greedy
Poems
Tongue
Mercy
Star
Poet
Pottage

More quotes by Anne Sexton

Image
To die whole, riddled with nothing but desire for it, is like breakfast after love.
Anne Sexton
Image
Don’t worry if they say you’re crazy. They said that about me and yet I was saner than all of them. I knew. No matter. You know. Insane or sane, you know. It’s a good thing to know - no matter what they call it.
Anne Sexton
Image
Father, you died once, salted down at fifty-nine, packed down like a big snow angel, wasn't that enough?
Anne Sexton
Image
Inside many of us is a small old man who wants to get out.
Anne Sexton
Image
I am younger each year at the first snow. When I see it, suddenly, in the air, all little and white and moving then I am in love again and very young and I believe everything.
Anne Sexton
Image
The fish are naked. The fish are always awake. They are the color of old spoons and caramels.
Anne Sexton
Image
Images are probably the most important part of the poem. First of all you want to tell a story, but images are what are going to shore it up and get to the heart of the matter.
Anne Sexton
Image
I would like a simple life / yet all night I am laying / poems away in a long box.
Anne Sexton
Image
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.
Anne Sexton
Image
Love your self's self where it lives.
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
Well, one gets out of bed and the planets don't always hiss or muck up the day, each day.
Anne Sexton
Image
When they turn the sun on again I'll plant children under it, I'll light up my soul with a match and let it sing.
Anne Sexton
Image
The windows, the starving windows that drive the trees like nails into my heart.
Anne Sexton
Image
The future is a fog that is still hanging out over the sea, a boat that floats home or does not.
Anne Sexton
Image
The little girl skipped by under the wrinkled oak leaves and held fast to a replica of herself.
Anne Sexton
Image
One can't build little white picket fences to keep nightmares out.
Anne Sexton
Image
The tongue, the Chinese say, is like a sharp knife: it kills without drawing blood.
Anne Sexton
Image
Meanwhile in my head, I’m undergoing open-heart surgery.
Anne Sexton
Image
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.
Anne Sexton