Sexton Quotes & Sayings

He said loudly 'I am not dying' and I said 'for me you are. — Anne Sexton

Women tell time by the body. They are like clocks. They are always fastened to the earth, listening for its small animal noises. — Anne Sexton

There is rust in my mouth,the stain of an old kiss. — Anne Sexton

Once upon a time we were all born,
popped out like jelly rolls
forgetting our fishdom,
the pleasuring seas,
the country of comfort,
spanked into the oxygens of death ... — Anne Sexton

Loving me with my shoes off
means loving my long brown legs,
sweet dears, as good as spoons;
and my feet, those two children
let out to play naked. — Anne Sexton

I'll put it out there: I am scarred by the nostalgic indicipherability of my own desires; I an engulfed by the intimidating unknown, pushed through darkness and dragged down by the irretrievable past sweetness of my memories. — Anne Sexton

Again And Again And Again

You said the anger would come back

just as the love did.

I have a black look I do not

like. It is a mask I try on.

I migrate toward it and its frog

sits on my lips and defecates.

It is old. It is also a pauper.

I have tried to keep it on a diet.

I give it no unction.

There is a good look that I wear

like a blood clot. I have

sewn it over my left breast.

I have made a vocation of it.

Lust has taken plant in it

and I have placed you and your

child at its milk tip.

Oh the blackness is murderous

and the milk tip is brimming

and each machine is working

and I will kiss you when

I cut up one dozen new men

and you will die somewhat,

again and again. — Anne Sexton

I was
the girl of the chain letter,
the girl full of talk of coffins and keyholes,
the one of the telephone bills,
the wrinkled photo and the lost connections ... — Anne Sexton

Fee-fi-fo-fum -
Now I'm borrowed.
Now I'm numb. — Anne Sexton

The rest of my room is book shelves. I hoard books. They are people who do not leave. — Anne Sexton

I remembered seeing it and it was this metallic turbine and I thought it was beautiful. I had never been in a power plant before, but I felt, without being overly dramatic, compelled to make photographs of this for myself. — John Sexton

I'd like to widen my education. I'd definitely like to widen my film range. I mean, I'd love to do some theater. — Brendan Sexton III

Saints have no moderation, nor do poets, just exuberance. — Anne Sexton

Jared?" His fingers were playing gently in my curls.
"Yes?" I was more than halfway asleep, perfectly warm and content, back in my own bed. With him.
"Say it for me."
"You're heavy."
"No."
"You're a manipulative bastard."
"No." He was laughing.
"You're right."
He gave one hard tug on my hair. "That's not it either."
"I love you?"
He sighed contentedly. "That's the one. — Marie Sexton

I fear I will be ripped open and found unsightly. — Anne Sexton

Oh, darling, let your body in, let it tie you in, in comfort. — Anne Sexton

Unless I can shake myself free of my dog, my flag,
of my desk, my mind, I find life a bit of a drag.
Not always, mind you. Usually I'm like my frying pan
useful, graceful, sturdy and with no caper, no plan. — Anne Sexton

I have been cut in two. — Anne Sexton

And my love stays bitterly glowing, spasms of it will not sleep, and I am helpless and thirsty and need shade but there is no one to cover me- not even God. — Anne Sexton

There is a considerable amount of manipulation in the printmaking from the straight photograph to the finished print. If I do my job correctly that shouldn't be visible at all, it should be transparent. — John Sexton

All day I've built
a lifetime and now
the sun sinks to
undo it. — Anne Sexton

God went out of me
as if the sea dried up like sandpaper, as if the sun
became a latrine.
God went out of my fingers.
They became stone.
My body became a side of mutton
and despair roamed the slaughterhouse. — Anne Sexton

It was as if a morning-glory had bloomed in her throat, and all that blue and small pollen ate into my heart, violent and religious — Anne Sexton

There is joy
in all:
in the hair I brush each morning,
in the Cannon towel, newly washed,
that I rub my body with each morning ... — Anne Sexton

The number of people who believe a thing has no bearing upon its truth. — Marie Sexton

Now, in my middle age,
about nineteen in the head I'd say,
I am rowing, I am rowing ... — Anne Sexton

My husband sings Baa Baa black sheep and we pretend
that all's certain and good, that the marriage won't end. — Anne Sexton

I burn the way money burns. — Anne Sexton

I've never seen a surface that I think is more seductive in image making. — John Sexton

Here in the hospital, I say,that is not my body, not my body.I am not here for the doctorsto read like a recipe. — Anne Sexton

That Elizabeth-Jane Farfrae be not told of my death, or made to grieve on account of me. "& that I be not bury'd in consecrated ground. "& that no sexton be asked to toll the bell. "& that nobody is wished to see my dead body. "& that no mourners walk behind me at my funeral. "& that no flowers be planted on my grave, "& that no man remember me. "To this I put my name. — Thomas Hardy

If you have endured a great despair, then, you did it alone. — Anne Sexton

Sometimes I fly like an eagle but with the wings of a wren — Anne Sexton

Somebody who should have been born
is gone.
Yes, woman, such logic will lead
to loss without death. Or say what you meant,
you coward ... this baby that I bleed. — Anne Sexton

I see myself as one would see another.
I have been cut in two. — Anne Sexton

This November there seems to be nothing to say. — Anne Sexton

I find the surface of a photograph a thing of beauty in and of itself, and it is this surface that makes a photograph unique relative to other two-dimensional media. — John Sexton

I gazed upon the glorious sky
And the green mountains round,
And thought that when I came to lie
At rest within the ground,
'Twere pleasant, that in flowery June
When brooks send up a cheerful tune,
And groves a joyous sound,
The sexton's hand, my grave to make,
The rich, green mountain-turf should break. — William C. Bryant

I think of myself as writing for one person, that one perfect reader who understands and loves. — Anne Sexton

He who bears in his heart a cathedral to be built is already victorious. He who seeks to become sexton of a finished cathedral is already defeated. — Antoine De Saint-Exupery

It
was my first doll that water went
into and water came out of much
earlier it was the diaper I wore
and the dirt thereof and my
mother hating me for it — Anne Sexton

Father,
you died once,
salted down at fifty-nine,
packed down like a big snow angel,
wasn't that enough? — Anne Sexton

You must be a poet,
a lady of evil luck
desiring to be what you are not,
longing to be
what you can only visit. — Anne Sexton

The bottom line is that your performance is made in the editing room. — Brent Sexton

And if I tried
to give you something else,
something outside myself,
you would not know
that the worst of anyone
can be, finally,
an accident of hope — Anne Sexton

It's not a question of getting the opportunities, it's a question of noticing that opportunities are there. — John Sexton

And within the house
ashes are being stuffed into my marriage,
fury is lapping the walls,
dishes crack on the shelves,
a strangler needs my throat,
the daughter has ceased to eat anything ... — Anne Sexton

One can't build little white picket fences to keep nightmares out. — Anne Sexton

So when I became interested in photography and further being inspired by the work that I saw of Ansel and others, it was a natural extension to go back to these places that I knew as a kid and explore them with my camera. — John Sexton

I was born doing reference work in sin, and born
confessing it. This is what poems are. — Anne Sexton

My brother's an aerospace engineer who works for Boeing, and I started thinking, 'Well, my brother works nine hours a day at his job ... What if I worked nine hours a day at being an actor?' — Brent Sexton

Watch out for love
(unless it is true,
and every part of you says yes including the toes),
it will wrap you up like a mummy,
and your scream won't be heard
and none of your running will run. — Anne Sexton

You fell, she said, just remember you fell.
I fell, is all he told the doctors
in the big hospital. A nice lady came
and asked him questions but because
he didn't want to be sent away he said, I fell.
He never said anything else although he could talk fine. — Anne Sexton

He loved Jaime. He loved him so much sometimes he thought he must certainly be losing his mind. It was hard to believe his heart could go on beating minute after minute, day after day, when it felt so distorted and huge and fragile. — Marie Sexton

I'm not going to tell you you're perfect, because you're not. And I'm not going to tell you I'll follow you to the end of the earth because that's stupid, there's no such thing. — Jackie Sexton

What is a church?-Our honest sexton tells, 'Tis a tall building, with a tower and bells. — George Crabbe

That film 'Memento' creeped me out. I was looking over my back through the whole thing. I get more creeped out than scared and spill popcorn all over the place. — Brendan Sexton III

The joy that isn't shared dies young. — Anne Sexton

Obviously, we can see what was in front of the camera, but if a photograph is honestly made, it's a bit of a self-portrait. I think it's impossible for a photographer who is working honestly to keep this from happening. — John Sexton

There is no word for time.
Today we will
not think to number another summer
or watch its white bird into the ground. — Anne Sexton

For forty days, for forty nights
Jesus put one foot in front of the other
and the man he carried,
if it was a man,
became heavier and heavier. — Anne Sexton

Watch out for intellect, because it knows so much it knows nothing and leaves you hanging upside down, mouthing knowledge as your heart falls out of your mouth. — Anne Sexton

I remember the stink of the liverwurst.
How I was put on a platter and laid
between the mayonnaise and the bacon.
The rhythm of the refrigerator
had been disturbed. — Anne Sexton

I shared a bed with my sister, Grace, until I was seventeen years old. She was afraid to sleep alone and would begin asking me around 5:00 P.M. every day whether she could sleep with me. I put on a big show of saying no, taking pleasure in watching her beg and sulk, but eventually I always relented. Her sticky, muscly little body thrashed beside me every night as I read Anne Sexton, watched reruns of SNL, sometimes even as I slipped my hand into my underwear to figure some stuff out. — Lena Dunham

He'd tried so hard to fight his fear, but there was a something liberating about giving up the battle and recognizing his fear was part of him. It wasn't something to be exorcised. It wasn't something to be obeyed. It needed only to be acknowledged. — Marie Sexton

Church doctrine has no place in secular law. You can't take away people's rights to meet your own religious criteria. — Marie Sexton

My ideas are a curse.
They spring from a radical discontent
with the awful order of things.
I play clown. I play carpenter. I play nurse.
I play witch. — Anne Sexton

You say I resemble a flower; I partly agree; My brain is governed by black petals of burnt daisies — Anne Sexton

When I'm about ready to press the cable release on the View camera, I've tried to anticipate some of the challenges I'm going to encounter in the darkroom. — John Sexton

What's missing is the eyeballs
in each of us, but it doesn't matter
because you've got the bucks, the bucks, the bucks. — Anne Sexton

I grow old on my bitterness. — Anne Sexton

In a dream you are never eighty. — Anne Sexton

The future is a fog that is still hanging out over the sea, a boat that floats home or does not. — Anne Sexton

She is so naked and singular. She is the sum of yourself and your dream. Climb her like a monument, step after step. She is solid. — Anne Sexton

Let the light be called Day so that men may grow corn or take busses. — Anne Sexton

You lay, a small knuckle on my white bed; lay, that fist like a snail, small and strong at my breast. Your lips are animals; you are fed with love. At first, hunger is not wrong. — Anne Sexton

I sit at my desk
each night with no place to go,
opening the wrinkled maps of Milwaukee and Buffalo,
the whole U.S.,
its cemeteries, its arbitrary time zones,
through routes like small veins, capitals like small stones. — Anne Sexton

It struck me again the ways Angelo and I were like them. Angelo was my angel, and I was ever on the ground, looking up at him. It was no wonder Jon and I hadn't been able to make things work
we'd both longed for something grander. And it was no wonder Cole and Angelo had been drawn to each other, and yet, they had only brushed wings in the night, neither one of them able to stop in their flight. — Marie Sexton

Some women marry houses. — Anne Sexton

Take a woman talking,
purging herself with rhymes,
drumming words out like a typewriter,
planting words in you like grass seed.
You'll move off. — Anne Sexton

I think Ewen Bremner is incredible. — Brendan Sexton III

Suicide is, after all, the opposite of the poem. — Anne Sexton

When the object that is produced, the photographic image has the ability to make tears come to your eyes; to inspire you to the point where you have to catch your breath, then nothing else matters. — John Sexton

Despair

Who is he?
A railroad track toward hell?
Breaking like a stick of furniture?
The hope that suddenly overflows the cesspool?
The love that goes down the drain like spit?
The love that said forever, forever
and then runs you over like a truck?
Are you a prayer that floats into a radio advertisement?
Despair,
I don't like you very well.
You don't suit my clothes or my cigarettes.
Why do you locate here
as large as a tank,
aiming at one half of a lifetime?
Couldn't you just go float into a tree
instead of locating here at my roots,
forcing me out of the life I've led
when it's been my belly so long?

All right!
I'll take you along on the trip
where for so many years
my arms have been speechless — Anne Sexton

Surely all who are locked in boxes of different sizes should have their hands held. — Anne Sexton

The film 'Black Hawk Down' paints the Somali people as wild savages. — Brendan Sexton III

What's your pick?"
"Jesus Camp"
"Never heard of it, Is it a slasher flick?"
'It's a documentary." We all laughed but he didn't seem to be joking. "I'm telling you, if that movie doesn't scare you, nothing will."
Jared looked at hi in astonishment. "A documentary about religion?"
"It's not about religion. It's about fanaticism. Not the same thing."
Angelo was looking thoughtful, and I knew we'd have a copy by the end of the month. — Marie Sexton

From "Her Kind"
I have found the warm caves in the woods,
filled them with skillets, carvings, shelves,
closets, silks, innumerable goods;
fixed the suppers for the worms and the elves:
whining, rearranging the disaligned.
A woman like that is misunderstood.
I have been her kind. — Anne Sexton

Take adultery or theft.
Merely sins.
It is evil who dines on the soul,
stretching out its long bone tongue.
It is evil who tweezers my heart,
picking out its atomic worms. — Anne Sexton

Even so, I must admire your skill.
You are so gracefully insane. — Anne Sexton

Every time I get happy
the Nana-hex comes through.
Birds turn into plumber's tools,
a sonnet turns into a dirty joke,
a wind turns into a tracheotomy,
a boat turns into a corpse ... — Anne Sexton

I realized something on the ride. I realized if I wait until I'm not scared to try new things, then I'll never get to try them at all. — Marie Sexton

Her Kind

I have gone out, a possessed witch,
haunting the black air, braver at night;
dreaming evil, I have done my hitch
over the plain houses, light by light:
lonely thing, twelve-fingered, out of mind.
A woman like that is not a woman, quite.
I have been her kind.

I have found the warm caves in the woods,
filled them with skillets, carvings, shelves,
closets, silks, innumerable goods;
fixed the suppers for the worms and the elves:
whining, rearranging the disaligned.
A woman like that is misunderstood.
I have been her kind.

I have ridden in your cart, driver,
waved my nude arms at villages going by,
learning the last bright routes, survivor
where your flames still bite my thigh
and my ribs crack where your wheels wind.
A woman like that is not ashamed to die.
I have been her kind. — Anne Sexton

A starving man doesn't ask what the meal is. — Anne Sexton

It is snowing and death bugs me
as stubborn as insomnia. — Anne Sexton

Then all this became history. Your hand found mine. Life rushed to my fingers like a blood clot. Oh, my carpenter, the fingers are rebuilt. They dance with yours. — Anne Sexton

You can't control what others think. The only thing you can control is yourself. Some people will look down on you for your choices in life, no matter what they are. You can't do anything about that. The only thing you can do is decide how to live your own life. And to hell with everybody else — Marie Sexton

The sky breaks.
It sags and breathes upon my face.
in the presence of mine enemies, mine enemies
The world is full of enemies.
There is no safe place. — Anne Sexton

Stop the darkness and its amputations
and find the real McCoy
in the private holiness
of my hands. — Anne Sexton

You who have inhabited me
in the deepest and most broken place,
are going, going — Anne Sexton