“Live or die, but don't poison everything...Well, death's been herefor a long time --it has a hell of a lotto do with helland suspicion of the eyeand the religious objectsand how I mourned themwhen they were made obsceneby my dwarf-heart's doodle.The chief ingredientis mutilation.And mud, day after day,mud like a ritual,and the baby on the platter,cooked but still human,cooked also with little maggots,sewn onto it maybe by somebody's mother,the damn bitch!Even so,I kept right on going on,a sort of human statement,lugging myself as ifI were a sawed-off bodyin the trunk, the steamer trunk.This became perjury of the soul.It became an outright lieand even though I dressed the bodyit was still naked, still killed.It was caughtin the first place at birth,like a fish.But I play it, dressed it up,dressed it up like somebody's doll.Is life something you play?And all the time wanting to get rid of it?And further, everyone yelling at youto shut up. And no wonder!People don't like to be toldthat you're sickand then be forcedto watchyoucomedown with the hammer.Today life opened inside me like an eggand there insideafter considerable diggingI found the answer.What a bargain!There was the sun,her yolk moving feverishly,tumbling her prize --and you realize she does this daily!I'd known she was a purifierbut I hadn't thoughtshe was solid,hadn't known she was an answer.God! It's a dream,lovers sprouting in the yardlike celery stalksand better,a husband straight as a redwood,two daughters, two sea urchings,picking roses off my hackles.If I'm on fire they dance around itand cook marshmallows.And if I'm icethey simply skate on mein little ballet costumes.Here,all along,thinking I was a killer,anointing myself dailywith my little poisons.But no.I'm an empress.I wear an apron.My typewriter writes.It didn't break the way it warned.Even crazy, I'm as niceas a chocolate bar.Even with the witches' gymnasticsthey trust my incalculable city,my corruptible bed.O dearest three,I make a soft reply.The witch comes onand you paint her pink.I come with kisses in my hoodand the sun, the smart one,rolling in my arms.So I say Liveand turn my shadow three times roundto feed our puppies as they come,the eight Dalmatians we didn't drown,despite the warnings: The abort! The destroy!Despite the pails of water that waited,to drown them, to pull them down like stones,they came, each one headfirst, blowing bubbles the color of cataract-blueand fumbling for the tiny tits.Just last week, eight Dalmatians,3/4 of a lb., lined up like cord woodeachlike abirch tree.I promise to love more if they come,because in spite of crueltyand the stuffed railroad cars for the ovens,I am not what I expected. Not an Eichmann.The poison just didn't take.So I won't hang around in my hospital shift,repeating The Black Mass and all of it.I say Live, Live because of the sun,the dream, the excitable gift.”
―
Anne Sexton,
The Complete Poems
“Grief is not linear. People kept telling me that once this happened or that passed, everything would be better. Some people gave me one year to grieve. They saw grief as a straight line, with a beginning, middle, and end. But it is not linear. It is disjointed. One day you are acting almost like a normal person. You maybe even manage to take a shower. Your clothes match. You think the autumn leaves look pretty, or enjoy the sound of snow crunching under your feet. Then a song, a glimpse of something, or maybe even nothing sends you back into the hole of grief. It is not one step forward, two steps back. It is a jumble. It is hours that are all right, and weeks that aren't. Or it is good days and bad days. Or it is the weight of sadness making you look different to others and nothing helps.” ― Ann Hood, Comfort: A Journey Through Grief
“Even now, there are still days so beautiful, I almost believe in God.” ― Ann Hood, Comfort: A Journey Through Grief
“No mother should lose her child.” ― Ann Hood, The Knitting Circle
“She understood that grief is not neat and orderly; it does not follow any rules. Time does not heal it. Rather time insists on passing and as it does, grief changes but does not go away.” ― Ann Hood, The Obituary Writer
“This was how to help a family who has just lost their child. Wash the clothes, make soup. Don't ask them what they need, bring them what they need. Keep them warm. Listen to them rant, and cry, and tell their story over and over.” ― Ann Hood, The Obituary Writer
“But Anne, do you love him?" I asked curiously.The curve of her hood hid all but the corner of her smile. "I am a fool to own it, but I am in a fever for his touch.” ― Philippa Gregory, The Other Boleyn Girl
“Time passes and I am still not through it. Grief isn't something you get over. You live with it. You go on on with it lodged in you. Sometimes I feel like I have swallowed a pile of stones. Grief makes me heavy. It makes me slow. Even on days when I laugh a lot, or dance, or finish a project, or meet a deadline, or celebrate, or make love, it is there. Lodged deep inside of me.” ― Ann Hood, Comfort: A Journey Through Grief
“Follow love and it will flee;Flee love and it will follow you.” ― Ann Hood
“All in all, I'd say,the world is strangling.And I, in my bed each night,listen to my twenty shoesconverse about it.And the moon,under its dark hood,falls out of the sky each night,with its hungry red mouthto suck at my scars.” ― Anne Sexton, The Complete Poems
“Don't waste your one beautiful life.” ― Ann Hood
“The only language she could speak was grief. How could he not know that? Instead, she said, "I love you." She did. She loved him. But even that didn't feel like anything anymore.” ― Ann Hood (The Knitting Circle), The Knitting Circle
“love is reliable. infatuation is temporary.” ― Ann Hood, The Obituary Writer
“Don't waste your one beautiful life," Vivien said softly.” ― Ann Hood, The Obituary Writer
“Could a writer understand how her book had saved someone long ago, when the world was a fragile, scary place and the people she loved weren't in it anymore? Could a writer understand that her book had mattered more than anything?” ― Ann Hood, The Book That Matters Most
“This one day her mother gave hera basket of wine and caketo take to her grandmotherbecause she was ill.Wine and cake?Where's the aspirin? The penicillin?Where's the fruit juice?Peter Rabbit got camomile tea.But wine and cake it was.” ― Anne Sexton, Transformations
“It mattered most to me then because of where I was in my life. So in a way, there isn't just one book that matters most, there might be several, or even a dozen.” ― Ann Hood, The Book That Matters Most
“On April 18, 1906, when that earthquake hit San Francisco and took David from her, Vivien began to speak the language of grief. She understood that grief is not neat and orderly; it does not follow any rules. Time does not heal it. Rather, time insists on passing, and as it does, grief changes but does not go away. Sometimes she could actually visualize her grief. It was a wave, a tsunami that came unexpectedly and swept her away. She could see it, a wall of pain that had grabbed hold of her and pulled her under. Some days, she could reach the air and breathe in huge comforting gulps. Some days she barely broke the surface, and still, after all this time, some days it consumed her and she wondered if there was any way free of it.” ― Ann Hood, The Obituary Writer
“Anne's lovers are phantom gentlemen, flitting by night with adulterous intent. They come and go by night, unchallenged. They skim over the river like midges, flicker against the dark, their doublets sewn with diamonds. The moon sees them, peering from her hood of bone, and Thames water reflects them, glimmering like fish, like pearls.” ― Hilary Mantel, Bring Up the Bodies
“Grief is not linear. People kept telling me that once this happened or that passed, everything would be better. Some people gave me one year to grieve. They saw grief as a straight line, with a beginning, middle, and end. But it is not linear. It is disjointed. One day you are acting almost like a normal person. You maybe even manage to take a shower. Your clothes match. You think the autumn leaves look pretty, or enjoy the sound of snow crunching under your feet. Then a song, a glimpse of something, or maybe even nothing sends you back into the hole of grief. It is not one step forward, two steps back. It is a jumble. It is hours that are all right, and weeks that aren't. Or it is good days and bad days. Or it is the weight of sadness making you look different to others and nothing helps.” ― Ann Hood, Comfort: A Journey Through Grief
“Even now, there are still days so beautiful, I almost believe in God.” ― Ann Hood, Comfort: A Journey Through Grief
“No mother should lose her child.” ― Ann Hood, The Knitting Circle
“She understood that grief is not neat and orderly; it does not follow any rules. Time does not heal it. Rather time insists on passing and as it does, grief changes but does not go away.” ― Ann Hood, The Obituary Writer
“This was how to help a family who has just lost their child. Wash the clothes, make soup. Don't ask them what they need, bring them what they need. Keep them warm. Listen to them rant, and cry, and tell their story over and over.” ― Ann Hood, The Obituary Writer
“But Anne, do you love him?" I asked curiously.The curve of her hood hid all but the corner of her smile. "I am a fool to own it, but I am in a fever for his touch.” ― Philippa Gregory, The Other Boleyn Girl
“Time passes and I am still not through it. Grief isn't something you get over. You live with it. You go on on with it lodged in you. Sometimes I feel like I have swallowed a pile of stones. Grief makes me heavy. It makes me slow. Even on days when I laugh a lot, or dance, or finish a project, or meet a deadline, or celebrate, or make love, it is there. Lodged deep inside of me.” ― Ann Hood, Comfort: A Journey Through Grief
“Follow love and it will flee;Flee love and it will follow you.” ― Ann Hood
“All in all, I'd say,the world is strangling.And I, in my bed each night,listen to my twenty shoesconverse about it.And the moon,under its dark hood,falls out of the sky each night,with its hungry red mouthto suck at my scars.” ― Anne Sexton, The Complete Poems
“Don't waste your one beautiful life.” ― Ann Hood
“The only language she could speak was grief. How could he not know that? Instead, she said, "I love you." She did. She loved him. But even that didn't feel like anything anymore.” ― Ann Hood (The Knitting Circle), The Knitting Circle
“love is reliable. infatuation is temporary.” ― Ann Hood, The Obituary Writer
“Don't waste your one beautiful life," Vivien said softly.” ― Ann Hood, The Obituary Writer
“Could a writer understand how her book had saved someone long ago, when the world was a fragile, scary place and the people she loved weren't in it anymore? Could a writer understand that her book had mattered more than anything?” ― Ann Hood, The Book That Matters Most
“This one day her mother gave hera basket of wine and caketo take to her grandmotherbecause she was ill.Wine and cake?Where's the aspirin? The penicillin?Where's the fruit juice?Peter Rabbit got camomile tea.But wine and cake it was.” ― Anne Sexton, Transformations
“It mattered most to me then because of where I was in my life. So in a way, there isn't just one book that matters most, there might be several, or even a dozen.” ― Ann Hood, The Book That Matters Most
“On April 18, 1906, when that earthquake hit San Francisco and took David from her, Vivien began to speak the language of grief. She understood that grief is not neat and orderly; it does not follow any rules. Time does not heal it. Rather, time insists on passing, and as it does, grief changes but does not go away. Sometimes she could actually visualize her grief. It was a wave, a tsunami that came unexpectedly and swept her away. She could see it, a wall of pain that had grabbed hold of her and pulled her under. Some days, she could reach the air and breathe in huge comforting gulps. Some days she barely broke the surface, and still, after all this time, some days it consumed her and she wondered if there was any way free of it.” ― Ann Hood, The Obituary Writer
“Anne's lovers are phantom gentlemen, flitting by night with adulterous intent. They come and go by night, unchallenged. They skim over the river like midges, flicker against the dark, their doublets sewn with diamonds. The moon sees them, peering from her hood of bone, and Thames water reflects them, glimmering like fish, like pearls.” ― Hilary Mantel, Bring Up the Bodies
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