I am sure there are things that can't be cured by a good bath but I can't think of one.

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 am too pure for you or anyone. From the poem "Fever 103 ", 20 October 1962

So 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.

How can you be so many women to so many strange people, oh you strange girl?

I am terrified by this dark thing that sleeps in me.

Is anyone anywhere happy?

I love my rejection slips. They show me I try.

What horrifies me most is the idea of being useless: well-educated, brilliantly promising, and fading out into an indifferent middle age.

There I went again, building up a glamorous picture of a man who would love me passionately the minute he met me, and all out of a few prosy nothings.

I began to think vodka was my drink at last. It didn’t taste like anything, but it went straight down into my stomach like a sword swallowers’ sword and made me feel powerful and godlike.

I thought the most beautiful thing in the world must be shadow.

People or stars Regard me sadly, I disappoint them. From the poem "Sheep in Fog", 2 December 1962, 28 January 1963

Ever since I was small I loved feeling somebody comb my hair. It made me go all sleepy and peaceful.

So much working, reading, thinking, living to do! A lifetime is not long enough.

What did my fingers do before they held him? What did my heart do, with its love? From " Three Women: A Poem for Three Voices", 1962

If you love her", I said, "you'll love somebody else someday.

If I didn't think, I'd be much happier; if I didn't have any sex organs, I wouldn't waver on the brink of nervous emotion and tears all the time.

The floor seemed wonderfully solid. It was comforting to know I had fallen and could fall no farther.

How frail the human heart must be―a mirrored pool of thought.

If they substituted the word 'Lust' for 'Love' in the popular songs it would come nearer the truth.

I think I made you up inside my head.

I lean to you, numb as a fossil. Tell me I'm here.

Eternity bores me, I never wanted it. From the poem "Years", 16 November 1962