Quote

One of my secret instructions to myself as a poet is Whatever you do, don't be boring.

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
Secret
Whatever
Instructions
Instruction
Boring
Poet

More quotes by Anne Sexton

Image
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.
Anne Sexton
Image
Oh thumb, I want a drink it is dark, where are the big people, when will I get there...?
Anne Sexton
Image
The sanest thing in this world is love.
Anne Sexton
Image
I love you. You are closest to my heart, closer than any other human being. You are my extension. You are my prayer. You are my belief in God. For better or worse you inherit me.
Anne Sexton
Image
Death, I need my little addiction to you. I need that tiny voice who, even as I rise from the sea, all woman, all there, says kill me, kill me.
Anne Sexton
Image
God has a brown voice, as soft and full as beer.
Anne Sexton
Image
I love the word warm. It is almost unbearable-- so moist and breathlike.
Anne Sexton
Image
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
Image
All I am is the trick of words writing themselves.
Anne Sexton
Image
Evil is maybe lying to God. Or better, lying to love.
Anne Sexton
Image
Rats live on no evil star
Anne Sexton
Image
life is a trick, life is a kitten in a sack.
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
I tell it stories now and then and feed it images like honey. I will not speculate today with poems that think they're money.
Anne Sexton
Image
Be careful of words, / ... they can be both daisies and bruises.
Anne Sexton
Image
Not that it was beautiful, but that, in the end, there was a certain sense of order there something worth learning in that narrow diary of my mind
Anne Sexton
Image
True. There is a beautiful Jesus. He is frozen to his bones like a chunk of beef. How desperately he wanted to pull his arms in! How desperately I touch his vertical and horizontal axes! But I can't. Need is not quite belief.
Anne Sexton
Image
Images are the heart of poetry ... You're not a poet without imagery.
Anne Sexton
Image
Yesterday I did not want to be borrowed but this is the typewriter that sits before me and love is where yesterday is at.
Anne Sexton
Image
I see myself as one would see another. I have been cut in two.
Anne Sexton