Cover of Ariel: The Restored Edition

Ariel: The Restored Edition

by Sylvia Plath

30 popular highlights from this book

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Key Insights & Memorable Quotes

Below are the most popular and impactful highlights and quotes from Ariel: The Restored Edition:

“If the moon smiled, she would resemble you.You leave the same impression Of something beautiful, but annihilating.”
“Out of the ash I rise with my red hairand I eat men like air.”
“Is it the sea you hear in me?Its dissatisfactions?Or the voice of nothing, that was your madness?Love is a shadow. How you lie and cry after it.--from "Elm", written 19 April 1962”
“I have taken a pill to killThe thinPapery feeling.--from "Cut", written 24 October 1962”
“Now I am silent, hateUp to my neck,Thick, thick.I do not speak.--from "Lesbos", written 18 October 1962”
“I used to pray to recover you.--from "Daddy", written 12 October 1962”
“There is a chargeFor the eyeing of my scars, there is a chargeFor the hearing of my heart - It really goes.And there is a charge, a very large charge,For a word or a touchOr a bit of bloodOr a piece of my hair or my clothes.--from "Lady Lazarus", written 23-29 October 1962”
“You smile.No, it is not fatal.--from "The Other", written 2 July 1962”
“Every woman adores a Fascist,The boot in the face, the bruteBrute heart of a brute like you.”
“I am still raw.I say I may be back.You know what lies are for.Even in your Zen heaven we shan't meet.--from "Lesbos", written 18 October 1962”
“I know the bottom, she says. I know it with my great tap root: It is what you fear.I do not fear it: I have been there.”
“Ash, ash —-You poke and stir.Flesh, bone, there is nothing there——A cake of soap,A wedding ring,A gold filling.Herr God, Herr LuciferBewareBeware.Out of the ashI rise with my red hairAnd I eat men like air.”
“A ring of gold with the sun in it?Lies. Lies and a grief.”
“I'm doped and thick from my last sleeping pill.”
“The sun gives you ulcers, the wind gives you T.B.Once you were beautiful.”
“All night your moth-breathFlickers among the flat pink roses. I wake to listen.A far sea moves in my ear.--from "Morning Song", written 19 February 1961”
“This is what it is to be complete. It is horrible.”
“I am only thirtyAnd like the cat I have nine times to die.This is Number Three.What a trashTo annihilate each decadeWhat a million filaments.The peanut-crunching crowdShoves in to see”
“And we, too, had a relationship—Tight wires between us,Pegs too deep to uproot, and a mind like a ringSliding shut on some quick thing,The constriction killing me also.”
“All the gods know is destinations.”
“This is a case without a body.The body does not come into it at all.”
“Dying Is an art, like everything else. I do it exceptionally well.”
“Nobody watched me before, now I am watched.The tulips turn to me, and the window behind meWhere once a day the light slowly widens and slowly thins,And I see myself, flat, ridiculous, a cut-paper shadowBetween the eye of the sun and the eyes of the tulips,And I have no face, I have wanted to efface myself.The vivid tulips eat my oxygen.”
“My body is a pebble to them, they tend it as waterTends to the pebbles it must run over, smoothing them gently.They bring me numbness in their bright needles, they bring me sleep.Now I have lost myself I am sick of baggage—My patent leather overnight case like a black pillbox,My husband and child smiling out of the family photo;Their smiles catch onto my skin, little smiling hooks.”
“There is a green in the air,Soft, delectable.It cushions me lovingly.”
“I am terrified by this dark thing That sleeps in me; All day I feel its soft, feathery turnings, its malignity.”
“I cannot undo myself, and the train is steaming.”
“The moon, also, is merciless: she would drag me Cruelly, being barren. Her radiance scathes me. Or perhaps I have caught her. I let her go. I let her go”
“I am inhabited by a cry.Nightly it flaps outLooking, with its hooks, for something to love.”
“Yüksek alakalarınızı küçümsüyorum sanmayın.Karıştırıp durduğunuzKüller, küller -Et, kemik, yok orada başka bir şey -”

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