Quote

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

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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
Matter
Poem
First
Images
Important
Probably
Heart
Story
Going
Tell
Stories
Part
Firsts
Shore

More quotes by Anne Sexton

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Poems aren't postcards to send home.
Anne Sexton
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The day of fire is coming, the thrush will fly ablaze like a little sky rocket.
Anne Sexton
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The sky breaks. It sags and breathes upon my face. in the presence of mine enemies, mine enemies The world is full of enemies. There is no safe place.
Anne Sexton
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I will be steel! I will build a steel bridge over my need! I will build a bomb shelter over my heart! But my future is a secret. It is as shy as a mole.
Anne Sexton
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I was spread out dailyand examined for flaws.
Anne Sexton
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Maybe, although my heart is a kitten of butter, I am blowing it up like a zeppelin.
Anne Sexton
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There is an animal inside me, clutching fast to my heart, a huge crab.
Anne Sexton
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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.
Anne Sexton
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Dead drunk is the term I think of, insensible, neither cool nor warm, without a head or a foot. To be drunk is to be intimate with a fool.
Anne Sexton
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I would sell my life to avoid the pain that begins in the crib with its bars or perhaps with your first breath when the planets drill your future into you.
Anne Sexton
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To die whole, riddled with nothing but desire for it, is like breakfast after love.
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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Depression is boring, I think and I would do better to make some soup and light up the cave.
Anne Sexton
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you see, we live in a cold climate and are not permitted to kiss on the street so I made up a song that wasn't true. I made up a song called Marriage.
Anne Sexton
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Now, in my middle age, about nineteen in the head I'd say, I am rowing, I am rowing.
Anne Sexton
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Jesus saw the multitudes were hungry and He said, Oh Lord, send down a short-order cook.
Anne Sexton
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I’m lost. And it’s my own fault. It’s about time I figured out that I can’t ask people to keep me found.
Anne Sexton
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Love? Be it man. Be it woman. It must be a wave you want to glide in on, give your body to it, give your laugh to it, give, when the gravelly sand takes you, your tears to the land. To love another is something like prayer and can't be planned, you just fall into its arms because your belief undoes your disbelief.
Anne Sexton
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I grow old on my bitterness.
Anne Sexton
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And within the house ashes are being stuffed into my marriage, fury is lapping the walls, dishes crack on the shelves, a strangler needs my throat, the daughter has ceased to eat anything.
Anne Sexton