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

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
Boring
Poet
Secret
Whatever
Instructions
Instruction

More quotes by Anne Sexton

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Then God spoke to me and said: People say only good things about Christmas. If they want to say something bad, they whisper.
Anne Sexton
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Poor thing. To die and never see Brooklyn.
Anne Sexton
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At six I lived in a graveyard full of dolls, avoiding myself, my body, the suspect in its grotesque house.
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Yes I try to kill myself in small amounts, an innocuous occupation. Actually I'm hung up on it.
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The stars are pears that no one can reach, even for a wedding. Perhaps for a death.
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think of innocent Icarus who is doing quite well: larger than a sail, over the fog and the blast of the plushy ocean, he goes. Admire his wings!
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But my future is a secret. / It is as shy as a mole.
Anne Sexton
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Perhaps I am no one. True, I have a body and I cannot escape from it. I would like to fly out of my head, but that is out of the question.
Anne Sexton
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The tongue, the Chinese say, is like a sharp knife: it kills without drawing blood.
Anne Sexton
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I think it will be a miracle if I don't someday end up killing myself.
Anne Sexton
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You cutting the lawn, fixing the machines, all this leprous day and then more vodka, more soda and the pond forgiving our bodies, the pond sucking out the throb.
Anne Sexton
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Suicide is, after all, the opposite of the poem.
Anne Sexton
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My mouth blooms like a cut.
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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.
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The snow has quietness in it no songs, no smells, no shouts or traffic. When I speak my own voice shocks me.
Anne Sexton
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Letters are false really - they are expressions of the way you wish you were instead of the way you are.
Anne Sexton
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We are all writing God's poem.
Anne Sexton
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Sometimes the soul takes pictures of things it has wished for, but never seen.
Anne Sexton
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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.
Anne Sexton
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The day of fire is coming, the thrush will fly ablaze like a little sky rocket.
Anne Sexton