Anne Sexton Quotes

Words are often seen hunting for an idea, but ideas are never seen hunting for words.

I seem to find different material every four to six months and I frequently forget it which is a shame because it would be nice to have a bigger library.

If it's hard to remember, it'll be difficult to forget.

How can I know what I think till I see what I say?

Thought itself needs words. It runs on them like a long wire. And if it loses the habit of words, little by little it becomes shapeless, somber.

Remind a man of what he remembers, and you will make him forget it.

Our writing equipment takes part in forming our thoughts.

For someone who can’t remember very much, there seems to be a lot I can’t forget.

In our endeavors to recall to memory something long forgotten, we often find ourselves upon the very verge of remembrance, without being able, in the end, to remember.

Estragon: I'm like that. Either I forget right away or I never forget.

We speak not only to tell other people what we think, but to tell ourselves what we think. Speech is a part of thought.

Thought and speech are inseparable from each other. Matter and expression are parts of one; style is a thinking out into language.

You have not forgotten to remember; You have remembered to forget. But people can forget to forget. That is just as important as remembering to remember - and generally more practical.

He who forgets will be destined to remember.

We cannot describe sound, but we cannot forget it either.

Remembering is the most overrated thing. Forgetting is far superior.

Don't think. That is the wrong way to bring anything back. Let it go. Sooner or later it will flash into your mind.

But the thing about remembering is that you don't forget.

...forgetting is vastly underrated as a mental operation.

I do remember, and then when I try to remember, I forget.

Recalling, for me, is a great way of living, so not to forget.

You forget what you want to remember, and you remember what you want to forget.

Experience teaches us that thought does not express itself in words, but rather realizes itself in them

I would have you imagine, then, that there exists in the mind of man a block of wax... and that we remember and know what is imprinted as long as the image lasts; but when the image is effaced, or cannot be taken, then we forget or do not know.

I needed, I decided, to really know her, because I needed more to remember. Before I could begin the shameful process of forgetting the how and the why of her living and dying, I needed to learn it: How. Why. When. Where. What.