27th October: Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath, US poet who wrote The Bell Jar, was born on this date in 1932. Here are ten things she said.

1. There is something demoralising about watching two people get more and more crazy about each other, especially when you are the only extra person in the room.
2. If you expect nothing from anybody, you’re never disappointed.
3. When you are insane, you are busy being insane - all the time.
4. Perhaps when we find ourselves wanting everything, it is because we are dangerously close to wanting nothing.
5. Before I give my body, I must give my thoughts, my mind, my dreams.
6. There is nothing like puking with somebody to make you into old friends.
7. So many people are shut up tight inside themselves like boxes, yet they would open up, unfolding quite wonderfully, if only you were interested in them.
8. So much working, reading, thinking, living to do! A lifetime is not long enough.
9. Please don’t expect me to always be good and kind and loving. There are times when I will be cold and thoughtless and hard to understand.
10. It was comforting to know I had fallen and could fall no farther.