Quote

Yes, I know. Death sits with his key in my lock. Not one day is taken for granted. Even nursery rhymes have put me in hock.

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
Granted
Rhymes
Keys
Carpe
Taken
Nursery
Death
Lock
Even
Sits
Locks
Rhyme
Mortality
Hock

More quotes by Anne Sexton

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All in all, I'd say, the world is strangling.
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Only my books anoint me, and a few friends, those who reach into my veins.
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We are America. We are the coffin fillers. We are the grocers of death. We pack them in crates like cauliflowers.
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Let there be a heaven so that man may outlive his grasses.
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It would be pleasant to be drunk.
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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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Our checks are pale. Our wallets are invalids. Past due, past due, is what our bills are saying and yet we kiss in every corner, scuffing the dust and the cat. Love rises like bread as we go bust.
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I raise my pelvis to God so that it may know the truth of how flowers smash through the long winter.
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I lay there silently, hoarding my small dignity. I did not ask about the gate or the closet. I did not question the bedtime ritual where, on the cold bathroom tiles, I was spread out daily and examined for flaws. I did not know that my bones, those solids, those pieces of sculpture would not splinter.
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All I wanted was a little piece of life, to be married, to have children.... I was trying my damnedest to lead a conventional life, for that was how I was brought up, and it was what my husband wanted of me. But one can't build little white picket fences to keep the nightmares out.
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Maybe, although my heart is a kitten of butter, I am blowing it up like a zeppelin.
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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
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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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As for me, I am a watercolor. I wash off.
Anne Sexton
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I remember the stink of the liverwurst. How I was put on a platter and laid between the mayonnaise and the bacon. The rhythm of the refrigerator had been disturbed.
Anne Sexton
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And tonight our skin, our bones, that have survived our fathers, will meet, delicate in the hold, fastened together in an intricate lock. Then one of us will shout, My need is more desperate! and I will eat you slowly with kisses even though the killer in you has gotten out.
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In an old time there was a king as wise as a dictionary.
Anne Sexton
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women are born twice.
Anne Sexton
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What's the point of fighting the dollars when all you need is a warm bed? When the dog barks you let him in. All we need is someone to let us in. And one other thing: to consider the lilies in the field.
Anne Sexton
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I rot on the wall, my own Dorian Gray.
Anne Sexton