Books Quotes by Sylvia Plath

“Virginia Woolf helps. Her novels make mine possible.”

— Sylvia Plath

I want Books and Babies and Beef stews.

— Sylvia Plath

Didn't you know I'm going to be the greatest, most entertaining author and artist in the world? Well, don't feel badly, I…

— Sylvia Plath

I find that in a novel I can get more of life, perhaps not such intense life, but certainly more of life…

— Sylvia Plath

My wanting to write books annihilates the original root impulse that would have me bravely and blunderingly working on them.

— Sylvia Plath

I had decided I would put off the novel until I had gone to Europe and had a lover.

— Sylvia Plath

The reason I haven't been writing in this book for so long is partly that I haven't had one decent coherent thought…

— Sylvia Plath

“I read through the phone book once, never mind when, and it satisfied a deep need in me to realize how many…

— Sylvia Plath

The door of the novel, like the door of the poem, also shuts. But not so fast, nor with such manic, unanswerable…

— Sylvia Plath

“I can never read all the books I want; I can never be all the people I want and live all the…

— Sylvia Plath

I want to force myself again and again to leave the warmth and security of static situations and move into the world…

— Sylvia Plath

What I didn't say was that each time I picked up a German dictionary or a German book, the very sight of…

— Sylvia Plath

Everybody had to go to some college or other. A business college, a junior college, a state college, a secretarial college, an…

— Sylvia Plath

What is my life for and what am I going to do with it? I don't know and I'm afraid. I can…

— Sylvia Plath

“Now I know how people can live without books, without college. (...)and so one goes on living, near the earth. At times…

— Sylvia Plath

I decided I would put off the novel until I had gone to Europe and had a lover, and that I would…

— Sylvia Plath

“But not so odd a name, after all, if you’ve ever read through the phone directory, with its Hyman Diddlebockers and Sasparilla…

— Sylvia Plath

“Amazing how money would simplify problems like ours. We wouldn't go wild at all, but write & travel & study all of…

— Sylvia Plath

“What is my life for and what am I going to do with it? I don't know and I'm afraid. I can…

— Sylvia Plath

“…What is my life for and what am I going to do with it? I don't know and I’m afraid. I can…

— Sylvia Plath

I always was interested in prose. As a teenager, I published short stories. And I always wanted to write the long short…

— Sylvia Plath

I cannot life for life itself: but for the words which stay the flux. My life, I feel, will not be lived…

— Sylvia Plath

“I am in danger of wanting my personal absolute to be a demigod of a man, and as there aren't many around,…

— Sylvia Plath

What do you have in mind after you graduate?" What I always thought I had in mind was getting some big scholarship…

— Sylvia Plath

I can never read all the books I want; I can never be all the people I want and live all the…

— Sylvia Plath

“Where was life? It dissipated, vanished into thin air, and my life stood weighed and found wanting because it had no ready-made…

— Sylvia Plath

“I decided I would put off the novel until I had gone to Europe and had a lover, and that I would…

— Sylvia Plath

“That's tough, Joan," I said, picking up my book. "Because I don't like you. You make me puke, if you want to…

— Sylvia Plath

“The words in his book wormed off the pages. Everything glittered like blank paper.”

— Sylvia Plath

If only a group of people were more important to me than the idea of a Novel, I might begin a novel.

— Sylvia Plath

Then I decided I would spend the summer writing a novel. That would fix a lot of people.

— Sylvia Plath