Sylvia Plath
Sylvia Plath
Sylvia Plathwas one of the most renowned and influential poets, novelists, and short story writers of the 20th century. Born in Boston, Massachusetts, she studied at Smith College and Newnham College at the University of Cambridge before receiving acclaim as a poet and writer. She was married to fellow poet Ted Hughes from 1956 until they separated in September of 1962. They lived together in the United States and then the United Kingdom and had two children, Frieda and Nicholas...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth27 October 1932
CountryUnited States of America
Then I decided I would spend the summer writing a novel. That would fix a lot of people.
I need the reality of other people, work, to fulfill myself. Must never become a mere mother and housewife.
I think writers are the most narcissistic people. Well, I musn't say this, I like many of them, a great many of my friends are writers.
The only reason I remembered this play was because it had a mad person in it, and everything I had ever read about mad people stuck in my mind, while everything else flew out.
I must learn more about these people―try to understand them, put myself in their place. No, instead I am so busy keeping my head above water that I scarcely know who I am, much less who anyone else is.
What is my life for and what am I going to do with it? I don't know and I'm afraid. 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 like people, but to learn about one individual always appeals to me more than anything.
Everything people did seemed so silly, because they only died in the end.
I don't see,' I said, 'how people stand being old. Your insides all dry up. When you're young you're so self-reliant. You don't even need much religion.
I love the people,' I said. 'I have room in me for love, and for ever so many little lives.
I hate handing over money to people for doing what I could just as easily do myself, it makes me nervous.
Secretly, in studies and attics and schoolrooms all over America, people must be writing.
I didn't really see why people should look at me. Plenty of people looked queerer than I did.
Is to throw together events from my own life, fictionalizing to add color—it’s a pot boiler really, but I think it will show how isolated a person feels when he is suffering a breakdown . . . I’ve tried to picture my world and the people in it as seen through the distorting lens of a bell jar.