Sylvia Plath was a master of expression, and her ability to capture and her willingness to share her raw and deeply moving experiences has been a gift to readers for decades. Whether you’re a Plath stan or this is the first you’re hearing of her masterpiece The Bell Jar, some — if not all — of these quotes are sure to resonate. While we’ve divided the quotes into three categories, it’s easy to say that every quote could really be placed in any of them.
Touching
From soothing reassurance to the bliss of being alive to the allure of darkness, Plath hits many touchstones of human emotion.
“I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart. I am, I am, I am.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
“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, The Bell Jar
“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, The Bell Jar
Relatable
While we hesitate to call these the most relatable given that nearly everything Plath writes resonates in some way, these are just too real to categorize them any other way.
“It was my first big chance, but here I was, sitting back and letting it run through my fingers like so much water.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
“That’s one of the reasons I never wanted to get married. The last thing I wanted was infinite security and to be the place an arrow shoots off from. I wanted change and excitement and to shoot off in all directions myself, like the colored arrows from a Fourth of July rocket.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
“I decided to take a hot bath. There must be quite a few things a hot bath won’t cure, but I don’t know many of them. Whenever I’m sad I’m going to die, or so nervous I can’t sleep, or in love with somebody I won’t be seeing for a week, I slump down just so far and then I say: “I’ll go take a hot bath.”
— Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
Existential
From simply keeping it real to grand ponderings, Plath was a master of existential musings.
“I felt wise and cynical as all hell.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
“When they asked me what I wanted to be I said I didn’t know.
“Oh, sure you know,” the photographer said.
“She wants,” said Jay Cee wittily, “to be everything.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
And while we won’t say we saved the best for last, I certainly saved a favorite.
“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn’t quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn’t make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
Hopefully these quotes inspired you to revisit, or explore for the first time, the literary world of Sylvia Plath.
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