I didn’t know why I was going to cry, but I knew that if anybody spoke to me or looked at me too closely the tears would fly out of my eyes and the sobs would fly out of my throat and I’d cry for a week. I could feel the tears brimming and sloshing in me like water in a glass that is unsteady and too full.

—Sylvia Plath in The Bell Jar

crying sadness tears fullness

About Sylvia Plath

Portrait of Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath (October 27, 1932 – February 11, 1963) was an American poet and author. She is credited with advancing the genre of confessional poetry and her works include The Colossus and Other Poems (1960), Ariel (1965), and The Bell Jar (1963), a semi-autobiographical novel published one month before her...

More quotations from Sylvia Plath

I began to think maybe it was true that when you were married and had children it was like being brainwashed, and afterward you went about as numb as a slave in a totalitarian state.

—Sylvia Plath in The Bell Jar

There is something demoralizing about watching two people get more and more crazy about each other, especially when you are the only extra person in the room.

—Sylvia Plath in 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 in The Bell Jar

The trouble was, I had been inadequate all along, I simply hadn't thought about it.

—Sylvia Plath in The Bell Jar

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 in The Bell Jar

More quotations tagged with “fullness”

A full cup must be carried steadily.

—English proverb

fullness proverbs steadiness

All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full.

—King Solomon

fullness water sea

The spring of love becomes hidden and soon filled up.

love fullness source

Tenderness contains an element of sadness. It is not the sadness of feeling sorry for yourself or feeling deprived, but it is a natural situation of fullness. You feel so full and rich, as if you were about to shed tears. Your eyes are full of tears, and the moment you blink, the tears will spill out of your eyes and roll down your cheeks. In order to be a good warrior, one has to feel this sad and tender heart.

—Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche

sadness tears fullness tenderness deprivation warriorship

I have two enemies in all the world, / Two twins, inseparably pooled: / The hunger of the hungry and the fullness of the full.

—Marina Tsvetaeva

hunger enemies fullness

History

3 Jun 2014 Added