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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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Poets are sitting in my kitchen. Why do these poets lie? Why do children get children and Did you hear what it said?
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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.
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A woman who writes feels too much.
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I'm an empress. I wear an apron. My typewriter writes. It didn't break the way it warned. Even crazy, I'm as nice as a chocolate bar.
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Big heart, wide as a watermelon, but wise as birth, there is so much abundance in the people I have.
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All considerations for these human remains! They must have an escort! They are classified!
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Even so, I must admire your skill. You are so gracefully insane.
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Now that I have written many words, and let out so many loves, for so many, and been altogether what I always was a woman of excess, of zeal and greed, I find the effort useless.
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I would like to think that no one would die anymore if we all believed in daisies but the worms know better, don't they? They slide into the ear of a corpse and listen to his great sigh.
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God went out of me as if the sea dried up like sandpaper, as if the sun became a latrine.
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All the oxygen of the world was in them. All the feet of the babies of the world were in them. All the crotches of the angels of the world were in them. All the morning kisses of Philadelphia were in them.
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The town is silent. The night boils with eleven stars. Oh starry starry night! This is how I want to die.
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Saints have no moderation, nor do poets, just exuberance.
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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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... man is eating the earth up like a candy bar.
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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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Need is not quite belief.
Anne Sexton
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My business is words. Words are like labels, or coins, or better, like swarming bees.
Anne Sexton
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The family story tells, and it was told true, of my great-grandfather who begat eight genius children and bought twelve almost new grand pianos. He left a considerable estate when he died.
Anne Sexton
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Everyone has left me except my muse, that good nurse. She stays in my hand, a mild white mouse.
Anne Sexton