As an aspiring writer, I love when I can find novels and authors that truly inspire me. Sylvia Plath is one of those authors. Although she lived a devastatingly short life, Plath's poems and one novel stand out in my mind as some of America's literary classics. Here are my favorite quotes of hers:
"I can never read all the books I want; I can never be all the people I want and live all the lives I want. I can never train myself in all the skills I want. And why do I want? I want to live and feel all the shades, tones and variations of metal and physical experience possible in my life. And I am horribly limited."
-- Sylvia Plath
"If you expect nothing from anybody, you're never disappointed."
-- Sylvia Plath
"Perhaps when we find ourselves wanting everything, it is because we are dangerously close to wanting something."
-- Sylvia Plath
"Remember, remember this is now, and now, and now. Live it, feel it, cling to it. I want to be acutely aware of all I've taken for granted."
-- Sylvia Plath
"Yes, I was infatuated with you: I am still. No one has ever heightened such a keen capacity of physical sensation in me. I cut you out because I couldn't stand being a passing fancy. Before I give my body, I must give my thoughts, my mind, my dreams. And you weren't having any of those."
-- Sylvia Plath
Although Plath was unable to fully experience all that life had to offer her, she fully understood the human experience. Her writing captured the very essence of what being human means and it should forever be celebrated in American literature.
