...we shall board our imagined ship and wildly sail among sacred islands of the mad till death shatters the fabulous stars and makes us real.
Sylvia PlathRead
If neurotic is wanting two mutually exclusive things at one and the same time, then I'm neurotic as hell. I'll be flying back and forth between one mutually exclusive thing and another for the rest of my days.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects the inner conflict of desiring contradictory things simultaneously.
In this quote, Sylvia Plath expresses the struggle of experiencing conflicting desires, illustrating the complexity of human emotions and the psychological turmoil that can arise from wanting mutually exclusive outcomes. The statement highlights the sense of being trapped in an internal battle, which can lead to feelings of neurosis as one oscillates between these opposing desires throughout life.
Themes
NeurosisDesireConflictPsychologyHuman Emotion
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be used in a discussion about mental health and the struggles of conflicting desires.
More from Sylvia Plath
All quotes →The hardest thing, I think, is to live richly in the present, without letting it be tainted & spoiled out of fear for the future or regret for a badly-managed past.
Sylvia PlathRead
It is as if my life were magically run by two electric currents: joyous positive and despairing negative--which ever is running at the moment dominates my life, floods it.
Sylvia PlathRead
You walked in, laughing, tears welling confused, mingling in your throat. How can you be so many women to so many people, oh you strange girl?
Sylvia PlathRead
I keep wanting to crawl back into the womb.
Sylvia PlathRead
It's the living, the eating, the sleeping that everyone needs. Ideas don't matter so much after all. My three best friends are Catholic. I can't see their beliefs, but I can see the things they love to do on earth. When you come right down to it, I do believe in the freedom of the individual.
Sylvia PlathRead
Similar quotes
Probability is the very guide of life.
Marcus Tullius CiceroRead
Political freedom cannot exist without economic freedom; a free mind and a free market are corollaries.
Ayn RandRead
To attempt the destruction of our passions is the height of folly. What a noble aim is that of the zealot who tortures himself like a madman in order to desire nothing, love nothing, feel nothing, and who, if he succeeded, would end up a complete monster!
Denis DiderotRead
By definition, of course, we believe the person with a stigma is not quite human. On this assumption we exercise varieties of discrimination, through which we effectively, if often unthinkingly, reduce his life chances.
Erving GoffmanRead
No important national language, at least in the Occidental world, has complete regularity of grammatical structure, nor is there a single logical category which is adequately and consistently handled in terms of linguistic symbolism.
Edward SapirRead
It is natural for the mind to believe and for the will to love; so that, for want of true objects, they must attach themselves to false.
Blaise PascalRead