Quotes From "The Bell Jar" By Sylvia Plath

But when it came right down to it, the skin of my wrist looked so white and defensless that I couldn't do it. It was as if what I wanted to kill wasn't in that skin or the thin blue pulse that jumped under my thumb, but somewhere else, deeper, more secret, and a whole lot harder to get. Sylvia Plath

I saw the years of my life spaced along a road in the form of telephone poles threaded together by wires. I counted one, two, three... nineteen telephone poles, and then the wires dangled into space, and try as I would, I couldn't see a single pole beyond the nineteenth. Sylvia Plath

I felt my lungs inflate with the onrush of scenery–air, mountains, trees, people. I thought, "This is what it is to be happy. Sylvia Plath

Death must be so beautiful. To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one’s head, and listen to silence. To have no yesterday, and no tomorrow. To forget time, to forgive life, to be at peace. Sylvia Plath

I told him I believed in hell, and that certain people, like me, had to live in hell before they died, to make up for missing out on it after death, since they didn't believe in life after death, and what each person believed happened to him when he died. Sylvia Plath

And then I wondered if as soon as he came to like me he would sink into ordinariness, and if as soon as he came to love me I would find fault after fault, the way I did with Buddy Willard and the boys before him.. The last thing I wanted was infinite security and to be the place an arrow shoots from. I wanted change and excitement and to shoot off in all directions myself, like the coloured arrows from a Fourth of July rocket. Sylvia Plath

So I began to think maybe it was true that when you were married and had children it was like being brainwashed, and afterward you went about as numb as a slave in a totalitarian state. Sylvia Plath

I also remembered Buddy Willard saying in a sinister, knowing way that after Ihad children I would feel differently, I wouldn't want to write poems any more. So I began to think maybe it was true that when you were married and had children it was like being brainwashed, and afterward you went about numb as a slave in some private, totalitarian state. Sylvia Plath

And I knew that in spite of all the roses and kisses and restaurant dinners a man showered on a woman before he married her, what he secretly wanted when the wedding service ended was for her to flatten out underneath his feet like Mrs. Willard's kitchen mat. Sylvia Plath

And of course I didn't know who would marry me now that I'd been where I had been. I didn't know at all. Sylvia Plath

A man's world is different from a woman's world and a man's emotions are different from a woman's emotions and only marriage can bring the two different sets of emotions together properly. Sylvia Plath

And I knew that in spite of all the roses and kisses and restaurant dinners a man showered on a woman before he married her, what he secretly wanted when the wedding service ended was for her to flatten out underneath his feet like Mrs Willard's kitchen mat Sylvia Plath

The main point of the article was that a man's world is different from a women's world and a man's emotions are different from a women's emotions and only marriage can bring the two worlds and the two different sets of emotions together properly. Sylvia Plath

My dream was one day ordering a drink and finding out it tasted wonderful. Sylvia Plath

This boy - his name was Eric - said he thought it disgusting the way all the girls at my college stood around on the porches under the porch lights and in the bushes in plain view, necking madly before the one o'clock curfew, so everybody passing by could see them. A million years of evolution, Eric said bitterly, and what are we? Animals. Sylvia Plath

Neurotic, ha! " I let out a scornful laugh. "If neurotic is wanting two mutually exclusive things at one and the same time, then I'm neurotic as hell. I'll be flying back and forth between one mutually exclusive thing and another for the rest of my days. Sylvia Plath

I felt Mr Willard had deserted me. I thought he must have planned it all along, but Buddy said No, his father simply couldn't stand the sight of sickness and especially his own son's sickness, because he thought all sickness was sickness of the will. Mr Willard had never been sick a day in his life. Sylvia Plath

When they asked me what I wanted to be I said I didn't know. Sylvia Plath

Because wherever I sat–on the deck of a ship or at a street café in Paris or Bangkok–I would be sitting under the same glass bell jar, stewing in my own sour air. Sylvia Plath

I thought the most beautiful thing in the world must be shadow, the million moving shapes and cul-de-sacs of shadow. There was shadow in bureau drawers and closets and suitcases, and shadow under houses and trees and stones, and shadow at the back of people's eyes and smiles, and shadow, miles and miles and miles of it, on the night side of the earth. Sylvia Plath

It seemed silly to wash one day when I would only have to wash again the next. It made me tired just to think of it. Sylvia Plath

I wondered why I couldn't go the whole way doing what I should any more. This made me sad and tired. Then I wondered why I couldn't go the whole way doing what I shouldn't, the way Doreen did, and this made me even sadder and more tired. Sylvia Plath

There is something demoralizing about watching two people get more and more crazy about each other, especially when you are the only extra person in the room. Sylvia Plath

I told Doreen I would not go to the show or the luncheon or the film premiere, but that I would not go to Coney Island either, I would stay in bed. Then I wondered why I couldn't go the whole way doing what I should any more. This made me sad and tired. Then I wondered why I couldn't go the whole way doing what I shouldn't, the way Doreen did, and this made me even sadder and more tired. Sylvia Plath

I stepped from the air-conditioned compartment onto the station platform, and the motherly breath of the suburbs enfolded me. It smelt of lawn sprinklers and station wagons and tennis rackets and dogs and babies. Sylvia Plath

I didn't want my picture taken because I was going to cry. I didn't know why I was going to cry, but I knew that if anybody spoke to me or looked at me too closely the tears would fly out of my eyes and the sobs would fly out of my throat and I'd cry for a week. I could feel the tears brimming and sloshing in me like water in a glass that is unsteady and too full. Sylvia Plath

We’ll take up where we left off, Esther’, she had said, with her sweet martyr’s smile. ‘We’ll act as if all this were a bad dream.’ A bad dream. To the person in the bell jar, blank and stopped as a dead baby, the world itself is a bad dream. A bad dream. I remembered everything. Sylvia Plath

I knew I should be grateful to Mrs Guinea, only I couldn't feel a thing. If Mrs Guinea had given me a ticket to Europe, or a round-the-world cruise, it wouldn't have made one scrap of difference to me, because wherever I sat - on the deck of a ship or a street cafe in Paris or Bangkok - I would be sitting under the same glass bell jar, stewing in my own sour air. Sylvia Plath

I moved in front of the medicine cabinet. If I looked in the mirror while I did it, it would be like watching somebody else, in a book or a play. Sylvia Plath

My mother smiled. "I knew my baby wasn't like that." I looked at her. "Like what?"" Like those awful people. Those awful dead people at that hospital." She paused. "I knew you'd decide to be all right again. Sylvia Plath

The reason why I hadn't washed my clothes or my hair was because it seemed so silly. I saw the days of the year stretching ahead like a series of bright, white boxes, and separating one box from another was sleep, like a black shade. Only for me, the long perspective of shades that set off one box from the next had suddenly snapped up, and I could see day after day glaring ahead of me like a white, broad, infinitely desolate avenue. It seemed silly to wash one day when I would only have to wash again the next. It made me tired just to think of it. I wanted to do everything once and for all and be through with it. Sylvia Plath

The one thing I was good at was winning scholarships and prizes, and that era was coming to an end. Sylvia Plath

I may have made a straight A in physics, but I was panic-struck. Physics made me sick the whole time I learned it. Sylvia Plath

I didn't know why I was going to cry, but I knew that if anybody spoke to me or looked at me too closely the tears would fly out of my eyes and the sobs would fly out of the throat and I'd cry for a week. Sylvia Plath

I began to see why woman-haters could make such fools of women. Woman-haters were like gods: invulnerable and chock full of power. They descended, and then they disappeared. You could never catch one. Sylvia Plath

Then I thought, "No, I broke it myself. I broke it on purpose to pay myself back for being such a heel. Sylvia Plath

He just wanted to see what a girl who was crazy enough to kill herself looked like. Sylvia Plath

When they asked some old Roman philosopher or other how he wanted to die, he said he would open his veins in a warm bath. I thought it would be easy, lying in the tub and seeing the redness flower from my wrists, flush after flush through the clear water, till I sank to sleep under a surface gaudy of poppies. But when it came right down to it, the sink of my wrist looked so white and defenseless that I couldn't do it. It was as if what I wanted to kill wasn't in that skin or the thin blue pulse that jumped under my thumb, but somewhere else, deeper, more secret, and a whole lot harder to get at. . Sylvia Plath

I brought the newspaper close up to my eyes to get a better view of George Pollucci's face, spotlighted like a three-quarter moon against a vague background of brick and black sky. I felt he had something important to tell me, and that whatever it was might just be written on his face. But the smudgy crags of George Pollucci's features melted away as I peered at them, and resolved themselves into a regular pattern of dark and light and medium gray dots. The inky black newspaper paragraph didn't tell why Mr Pollucci was on the ledge, or what Sgt Kilmartin did to him when he finally got him in through the window. . Sylvia Plath

I also had a dim idea that if I walked the streets of New York by myself all night something of the city's mystery and magnificence might rub off on me at last. But I gave it up. Sylvia Plath

I buried my head under the darkness of the pillow and pretended it was night. I couldn't see the point of getting up. I had nothing to look forward to. Sylvia Plath

My mother said the cure for thinking too much about yourself was helping somebody who was worse off than you. Sylvia Plath

I thought the most beautiful thing in the world must be shadow. Sylvia Plath

Mrs Guinea answered my letter and invited me to lunch at her home. That was where I saw my first finger-bowl. The water had a few cherry blossoms floating in it, and I thought it must be some clear sort of Japanese after-dinner soup and ate every bit of it, including the crisp little blossoms. Mrs Guinea never said anything, and it was only much later, when I told a debutant I knew at college about dinner, that I learned what I had done. . Sylvia Plath

I'm not sure why it is, but I love food more than just about anything else. Sylvia Plath