# Quote — Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

> "It's a tango." Marco maneuvered me out among the dancers. "I love tangos." "I can't dance." "You don't have to dance. I'll do that dancing." Marco hooked an arm around my waist and jerked me up against his dazzling white suit. Then he said, "Pretend you are drowning." I shut my eyes, and the music broke over me like a rainstorm. Marco's leg slid forward against mine and my leg slid back and I seemed to be riveted against him, limb for limb, moving as he moved, without any will or knowledge of my own, and after a while I thought, "It doesn't take two to dance, it only takes one," and I let myself blow and bend like a tree in the wind. "What did I tell you?" Marco's breath scorched my ear. "You're a perfectly respectable dancer."

- Author: [Sylvia Plath](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sylvia-plath.md)
- Book: [The Bell Jar](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sylvia-plath/the-bell-jar.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Sylvia_Plath#The_Bell_Jar_(1963)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/sylvia-plath/the-bell-jar/its-a-tango

## More from this book

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

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sylvia-plath/the-bell-jar/there-ought-i-thought.md)

> How did I know that someday — at college, in Europe, somewhere, anywhere — the bell jar, with its stifling distortions, wouldn’t descend again?

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sylvia-plath/the-bell-jar/how-did-i-know.md)

> I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart: I am, I am, I am.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sylvia-plath/the-bell-jar/i-took-a-deep.md)