Sylvia Plath Quotes About Mothers

Quotes about: Mothers

• Why the hell are we conditioned into the smooth strawberry-and-cream Mother-Goose-world, Alice-in-Wonderland fable, only to be broken on the wheel as we grow older and become aware of ourselves as individuals with a dull responsibility in life?

  Sylvia Plath

  Inspirational, Mother, Responsibility

  Sylvia Plath (2007). “The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath”, p.35, Anchor

• My mother said the cure for thinking too much about yourself was helping somebody who was worse off than you.

  Sylvia Plath

  Mother, Thinking, Too Much

  Sylvia Plath (2008). “The Bell Jar”, p.120, Faber & Faber

• Why honey, don't you want to get dressed?" My mother took care never to tell me to do anything. She would only reason with me sweetly, like one intelligent, mature person with another. It's almost three in the afternoon." I'm writing a novel," I said. "I haven't got time to change into this and change into that.

  Sylvia Plath

  Mother, Writing, Intelligent

  Sylvia Plath (2016). “The Bell Jar”, p.62, Hamilton Books

• I do not love; I do not love anybody except myself. That is a rather shocking thing to admit. I have none of the selfless love of my mother. I have none of the plodding, practical love. . . . . I am, to be blunt and concise, in love only with myself, my puny being with its small inadequate breasts and meager, thin talents. I am capable of affection for those who reflect my own world.

  Sylvia Plath

  Mother, Selfless, World

  Sylvia Plath (2007). “The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath”, p.98, Anchor

• I do not want a plain box, I want a sarcophagus
  With tigery stripes, and a face on it
  Round as the moon, to stare up.
  I want to be looking at them when they come
  Picking among the dumb minerals, the roots.
  I see them already-the pale, star-distance faces.
  Now they are nothing, they are not even babies.
  I imagine them without fathers or mothers, like the first gods.
  They will wonder if I was important.

  Sylvia Plath

  Mother, Baby, Stars

• It was my last act of love (first words to her mother in the hospital after her first major suicide attempt)

  Sylvia Plath

  Mother, Suicide, Suicidal

• This seemed a dreary and wasted life for a girl with fifteen years of straight A's, but I knew that's what marriage was like, because cook and clean and wash was just what Buddy Willard's mother did from morning till night, and she was the wife of a university professor and had been a private school teacher herself.

  Sylvia Plath

  Marriage, Girl, Mother

  Sylvia Plath (2016). “The Bell Jar”, p.45, Hamilton Books

• ... you looked around and saw everybody either married or busy and happy and thinking and being creative, and you felt scared, sick, lethargic, worst of all, not wanting to cope. You saw visions of yourself in a straightjacket, and a drain on the family, murdering your mother in actuality, killing the edifice of love and respect built up over the years in the hearts of other people.

  Sylvia Plath

  Depression, Mother, Heart

  Sylvia Plath (2013). “The Journals of Sylvia Plath”, p.87, Anchor

• Mother of otherness, Eat me.

  Sylvia Plath

  Mother, Otherness

  Sylvia Plath (2015). “Collected Poems”, Faber & Faber

• I didn't know shorthand either. This meant I couldn't get a good job after college. My mother kept telling me nobody wanted a plain English major. But an English major who knew shorthand would be something else again. Everybody would want her. She would be in demand among all the up-and-coming young men and she would transcribe letter after thrilling letter. The trouble was, I hated the idea of serving men in any way. I wanted to dictate my own thrilling letters.

  Sylvia Plath

  Mother, Jobs, College

• That afternoon my mother had brought me the roses. "Save them for my funeral," I'd said.

  Sylvia Plath

  Mother, Rose, Funeral

  Sylvia Plath (2016). “The Bell Jar”, p.103, Hamilton Books

• The journey over the bridge had unnerved me. The river water passed me by like an untouched drink. I suspected that even if my mother and brother had not been there I would have made no move to jump.

  Sylvia Plath

  Mother, Suicide, Brother

  Sylvia Plath (2008). “The Bell Jar”, p.138, Faber & Faber

• I need the reality of other people, work, to fulfill myself. Must never become a mere mother and housewife.

  Sylvia Plath

  Mother, Reality, People

  Sylvia Plath (2013). “The Journals of Sylvia Plath”, p.329, Anchor

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