# Quote — Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

> When they asked some old Roman philosopher or other how he wanted to die, he said he would open his veins in a warm bath. I thought it would be easy, lying in the tub and seeing the redness flower from my wrists, flush after flush through the clear water, till I sank to sleep under a surface gaudy as poppies. But when it came right down to it, the skin of my wrist looked so white and defenseless that I couldn't do it. It was as if what I wanted to kill wasn't in that skin or the thin blue pulse that jumped under my thumb, but somewhere else, deeper, more secret, and a whole lot harder to get at.

- 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/when-they-asked

## 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)