The Bell Jar Quotes

The Bell Jar Quote of the day

To the person in the bell jar, blank and stopped as a dead baby, the world itself is a bad dream.

I sank back in the gray, plush seat and closed my eyes. The air of the bell jar wadded round me and I couldn't stir.

But I wasn't sure. I wasn't sure at all. How did I know that someday―at college, in Europe, somewhere, anywhere―the bell jar, with its stifling distortions, wouldn't descend again?

My mother said the cure for thinking too much about yourself was helping somebody who was worse off than you.

Don't let the wicked city get you down.

There is something demoralizing about watching two people get more and more crazy about each other, especially when you are the only extra person in the room.

I was supposed to be having the time of my life.

Someone once said that under the bell jar of compliance, the only thing that blooms is rage.

I didn't know what I was doing in New York.

I buried my head under the darkness of the pillow and pretended it was night. I couldn't see the point of getting up. I had nothing to look forward to.

The trouble was, I had been inadequate all along, I simply hadn't thought about it.

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

The thought that I might kill myself formed in my mind coolly as a tree or a flower.

When they asked me what I wanted to be I said I didn't know.

There ought, I thought, to be a ritual for being born twice - patched, retreaded and approved for the road.

All the heat and fear had purged itself. I felt surprisingly at peace. The bell jar hung suspended a few feet above my head. I was open to the circulating air.

I am made, crudely, for success.

I couldn’t see the point of getting up. I had nothing to look forward to.

I wanted to be where nobody I knew could ever come.

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.

Not easy to state the change you made. If I'm alive now, I was dead, Though, like a stone, unbothered by it.

There was a beautiful time.

I don't know how long I kept at it...I felt reasonably safe, streched out on the floor, and lay quite still.It didn't seem to be summer any more

She looked terrible, but very wise.

I could feel the tears brimming and sloshing in me like water in a glass that is unsteady and too full.

There was a beautiful time...

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead

Not easy to state the change you made.If I'm alive now, I was dead, Though, like a stone, unbothered by it.