Quotes from Plath: Poems

“O love, how did you get here?

--Nick and the Candlestick”
― Sylvia Plath, quote from Plath: Poems

“There is more than one good way to drown.”
― Sylvia Plath, quote from Plath: Poems

“I didn't want any flowers, I only wanted
To lie with my hands turned up
and be utterly empty.
How free it is, you have no idea how free -
The peacefulness is so big it dazes you,
And it asks for nothing. ~ Tulips (1961)”
― Sylvia Plath, quote from Plath: Poems

“The storerooms are full of hearts.
This is the city of spare parts.”
― Sylvia Plath, quote from Plath: Poems

“Let me sit in a flowerpot,
The spiders won't notice.
My heart is a stopped geranium.”
― Sylvia Plath, quote from Plath: Poems

“Perhaps you considered yourself an oracle,
Mouthpiece of the dead, or of some god or other.
Thirty years now I have labored
To dredge the silt from your throat.
I am none the wiser.”
― Sylvia Plath, quote from Plath: Poems

“Your shelled bed I remember.
Father, this thick air is murderous.
I would breathe water.”
― Sylvia Plath, quote from Plath: Poems

“I'm a riddle in nine syllables,
An elephant, a ponderous house,
A melon strolling on two tendrils.
O red fruit, ivory, fine timbers!
This loaf's big with its yeasty rising.
Money's new-minted in this fat purse.
I'm a means, a stage, a cow in calf.
I've eaten a bag of green apples,
Boarded the train there's no getting off.”
― Sylvia Plath, quote from Plath: Poems

“the cat unsheathes its claws
the world turns”
― Sylvia Plath, quote from Plath: Poems

“The words in his book wormed off the pages.
Everything glittered like blank paper.”
― Sylvia Plath, quote from Plath: Poems

“You inherit white heather, a bee's wing,
Two suicides, the family wolves,
Hours of blankness.”
― Sylvia Plath, quote from Plath: Poems

“Through the mind like an oyster labors on and on, / A grain of sand is all we have”
― Sylvia Plath, quote from Plath: Poems

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Popular quotes

“Denn gegen die Liebe ist kein Kraut gewachsen, gegen sie hilft kein Trank, keine Speise, nichts, was in Zaubersprüchen gemurmelt wird, sondern nur Kuss und Umarmung und nackt beieinanderzuliegen.
- Philetas”
― quote from Daphnis and Chloe

“Despite her maturity, Mary was easily hoodwinked; that’s the problem with those who only ever see the good in people. I found it easy to appear saddened as she recounted some of the horrors callers had told her. Secretly, I couldn’t wait until she let go of my reins and I could experience their suffering first-hand.”
― John Marrs, quote from The Good Samaritan

“Every sixty seconds, thirty acres of rain forest are destroyed in order to raise beef for fast-food restaurants that sell it to people, giving them strokes and heart attacks, which raise medical costs and insurance rates, providing insurance companies with more money to invest in large corporations that branch out further into the Third World so they can destroy more rain forests.”
― George Carlin, quote from Napalm & Silly Putty

“I didn’t realize I was squeezing Tiffany’s and Bird’s hands until Bird said, “You know, bones break under pressure.”
― Rachel Hawthorne, quote from The Boyfriend League

“Construyendo los pensamientos de esta manera y, particularmente, si tu deseo es aprovechar la muerte para el bien de todos los seres, será necesario que reconozcas la Luz, a fin de alcanzar con ella la sublime coronación del Estado del Gran Símbolo4. Para ello, debes decir: ‘Puede que no pueda comprenderlo, pero conoceré este Bardo y dominando al Gran Cuerpo de Unión en él, renaceré en cualquiera de las formas que beneficie a los seres sensibles. Serviré a todos ellos que se extienden hasta los confines del espacio. Sin interrumpir el pensamiento de la disposición del espíritu de la vigilia’ ”. Es en este momento cuando el moribundo debe tratar de recordar las enseñanzas religiosas que le fueron impartidas durante su vida. Al decir estas palabras, el guía debe colocar sus labios cerca del oído y repetirlas claramente, dejando una huella en la mente del moribundo para que no tenga oportunidad de extraviarse y se mantenga recta en su camino. Por esa razón, tras el cese completo de la espiración, debe presionarse firmemente el nervio del sueño; luego, si quien muere es un lama o una persona con mayor instrucción, se le grabarán las siguientes palabras: “Reverendo Señor, ahora te encuentras en la experiencia de la Luz Clara Fundamental; permanece en ese estado”. Si se trata de una persona cualquiera, el guía deberá decir: “Oh, noble nacido (nombre), escucha lo que tengo para decirte: estás experimentando el Resplandor de la Luz Clara de la Realidad Pura. Debes reconocerla. Tu intelecto actual, ya vacío por completo y sin formas que condicionen el color, la sustancia o el pensamiento, vacío hasta la naturalidad más absoluta, es la Realidad y el Todo Bueno. El propio intelecto, ahora ya por completo vacío pero manteniendo su existencia en sí, está libre de limitaciones y brilla. Es el intelecto mismo y no el vacío de la nada, la bienaventurada conciencia, el Buda Todo Bondad. La conciencia tuya, ahora sin formación y vacía de toda realidad, y tu intelecto en pleno brillo, son dos esencias inseparables cuya unión es el estado Dharma-Käya, la Iluminación Perfecta. La conciencia tuya, unida al Cuerpo Grande que Resplandece, vacía por completo y luminosa, no tiene principio ni fin, y es una Luz Perdurable, el Buda Amitabha. Será necesario y suficiente que reconozcas el vacío de tu intelecto en el Estado Búdico, y que comprendas que se trata de tu conciencia, para que te mantengas con la mente en su estado divino”.”
― Padmasambhava, quote from Tibetan Book of the Dead

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About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.