Emily Dickinson Quotes

“Oh phosphorescence. Now there’s a word to lift your hat to... To find that phosphorescence, that light within — is the genius behind poetry.”
― William Luce, The Belle of Amherst

“I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,
And Mourners to and fro
Kept treading – treading – till it seemed
That Sense was breaking through –

And when they all were seated,
A Service, like a Drum –
Kept beating – beating – till I thought
My Mind was going numb –

And then I heard them lift a Box
And creak across my Soul
With those same Boots of Lead, again,
Then Space – began to toll,

As all the Heavens were a Bell,
And Being, but an Ear,
And I, and Silence, some strange Race
Wrecked, solitary, here –

And then a Plank in Reason, broke,
And I dropped down, and down –
And hit a World, at every plunge,
And Finished knowing – then –”
― Emily Dickinson, The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

“She died--this was the way she died;
And when her breath was done,
Took up her simple wardrobe
And started for the sun.
Her little figure at the gate
The angels must have spied,
Since I could never find her
Upon the mortal side.”
― Emily Dickinson, Selected Poems

“All is as if the world did cease to exist. The city's monuments go unseen, its past unheard, and its culture slowly fading in the dismal sea.”
― Nathan Reese Maher

“open me carefully”
― Emily Dickinson, Selected Letters

“Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.

We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
And I had put away
My labour, and my leisure too,
For his civility.

We passed the school where children played,
Their lessons scarcely done;
We passed the fields of gazing grain,
We passed the setting sun.

We paused before a house that seemed
A swelling of the ground;
The roof was scarcely visible,
The cornice but a mound.

Since then 'tis centuries; but each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses' heads
Were toward eternity.”
― Emily Dickinson

“I think of love, and you, and my heart grows full and warm, and my breath stands still.”
― Emily Dickinson, Open Me Carefully: Emily Dickinson's Intimate Letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson

“I miss you, mourn for you, and walk the streets alone- often at night, beside, I fall asleep in tears, for your dear face, yet not one word comes back to me. If it is finished, tell me, and I will raise the lid to my box of Phantoms, and lay one more love in; but if it lives and beats still, still lives and beats for me, then say so, and I will strike the strings to one more strain of happiness before I die.”
― Emily Dickinson, Open Me Carefully: Emily Dickinson's Intimate Letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson

“How wrong Emily Dickinson was! Hope is not "the thing with feathers." The thing with feathers has turned out to be my nephew. I must take him to a specialist in Zurich.”
― Woody Allen, Without Feathers

“Her breast is fit for pearls,
But I was not a "Diver" -
Her brow is fit for thrones
But I have not a crest,
Her heart is fit for home-
I- a Sparrow- build there
Sweet of twigs and twine
My perennial nest.”
― Emily Dickinson, Open Me Carefully: Emily Dickinson's Intimate Letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson

“Oh Susie, I often think that I will try to tell you how very dear you are, and how I'm watching for you, but the words won't come, though the tears will, and I sit down disappointed. Yet, darling, you know it all-- then why do I seek to tell you? I do not know. In thinking of those I love, my reason is all gone from me, and I do fear sometimes that I must make a hospital for the hopelessly insane, and chain myself up there so I won't injure you.”
― Emily Dickinson, Open Me Carefully: Emily Dickinson's Intimate Letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson

“Le monde est oval. On apprend l’eau par la soif, et la terre par le voyage en mer; la passion par les affres, et la paix par les récits de guerre; l’amour par la mort, et les oiseaux par l’hiver.”
― Emily Dickinson

“Sweet hour, blessed hour, to carry me to you, and to bring you back to me, long enough to snatch one kiss, and whisper goodbye again.”
― Emily Dickinson, Open Me Carefully: Emily Dickinson's Intimate Letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson

“Emily Dickinson , in my opinion, is the perfect (although admittedly slightly cliche) poet for lonely fat girls.”
― Suzanne Supplee, Artichoke's Heart

“Why else do we write and write except to move our readers?”
― Jerome Charyn, The Secret Life of Emily Dickinson

“And somebody has lost the face
That made existence home!”
― Emily Dickinson, Dickinson: Poems

“Because I could not stop for Death –
He kindly stopped for me –
The Carriage held but just Ourselves –
And Immortality.”
― Emily Dickinson

“Taking Off Emily Dickinson’s Clothes"

First, her tippet made of tulle,
easily lifted off her shoulders and laid
on the back of a wooden chair.

And her bonnet,
the bow undone with a light forward pull.

Then the long white dress, a more
complicated matter with mother-of-pearl
buttons down the back,
so tiny and numerous that it takes forever
before my hands can part the fabric,
like a swimmer’s dividing water,
and slip inside.

You will want to know
that she was standing
by an open window in an upstairs bedroom,
motionless, a little wide-eyed,
looking out at the orchard below,
the white dress puddled at her feet
on the wide-board, hardwood floor.

The complexity of women’s undergarments
in nineteenth-century America
is not to be waved off,
and I proceeded like a polar explorer
through clips, clasps, and moorings,
catches, straps, and whalebone stays,
sailing toward the iceberg of her nakedness.

Later, I wrote in a notebook
it was like riding a swan into the night,
but, of course, I cannot tell you everything—
the way she closed her eyes to the orchard,
how her hair tumbled free of its pins,
how there were sudden dashes
whenever we spoke.

What I can tell you is
it was terribly quiet in Amherst
that Sabbath afternoon,
nothing but a carriage passing the house,
a fly buzzing in a windowpane.

So I could plainly hear her inhale
when I undid the very top
hook-and-eye fastener of her corset

and I could hear her sigh when finally it was unloosed,
the way some readers sigh when they realize
that Hope has feathers,
that Reason is a plank,
that Life is a loaded gun
that looks right at you with a yellow eye.”
― Billy Collins, Taking Off Emily Dickinson's Clothes: Selected Poems

“All she needs is to lay down a few sentences, sometimes just a few words, on paper to feel soothed, for a moment delivered from this nameless, pointless urgency that consumes her. Even saved. What is the catastrophe from which she tries to rip these lines? Oblivion, death, the inferno of the world? She couldn't say.”
― Dominique Fortier, Les villes de papier

“Of Course— I prayed— / And did God Care?”
― Emily Dickinson, The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

“The person that I was — / And this One — do not feel the same — / Could it be Madness — this?”
― Emily Dickinson

“Unable are the Loved to die / For Love is Immortality, / Nay, it is Deity — / Unable they that love — to die / For Love reforms Vitality / Into Divinity”
― Emily Dickinson

“There is a flower that Bees prefer —
And Butterflies — desire —
To gain the Purple Democrat
The Humming Bird — aspire —

And Whatsoever Insect pass —
A Honey bear away
Proportioned to his several dearth
And her — capacity —

Her face be rounder than the Moon
And ruddier than the Gown
Of Orchis in the Pasture —
Or Rhododendron — worn —

She doth not wait for June —
Before the World be Green —
Her sturdy little Countenance
Against the Wind — be seen —

Contending with the Grass —
Near Kinsman to Herself —
For Privilege of Sod and Sun —
Sweet Litigants for Life —

And when the Hills be full —
And newer fashions blow —
Doth not retract a single spice
For pang of jealousy —

Her Public — be the Noon —
Her Providence — the Sun —
Her Progress — by the Bee — proclaimed —
In sovereign — Swerveless Tune —

The Bravest — of the Host —
Surrendering — the last —
Nor even of Defeat — aware —
When cancelled by the Frost —”
― Emily Dickinson, Emily Dickinson

“Dort auf den Treppen, auf denen man ganz Wien überblicken kann, schlage ich Emily Dickinson auf und lese über das Niemandsein, über die Wahrheit, die dich wie ein Blitz trifft, und die Lügen, wie Donnerschläge.”
― Mehwish Sohail, Like water in your hands

“Which Anguish was the utterest — then — / To perish, or to live?”
― Emily Dickinson

“Remorse is cureless — the Disease / Not even God — can heal — / for 'tis His institution — and / The Adequate of Hell—”
― Emily Dickinson

“The Surly Caller by Stewart Stafford

Pain - stalker at my door;
Resigned admission inside,
Drags a chair, fills teary ducts,
Drapes tingling spider's webs.

Grey vista of a dreaded visit,
Common or garden victim by force,
Pain is the barb to candied joy;
Twin-horned teasing tormentor.

In rapid eye movement, we dream,
It sleepwalks in my creaking room,
I hear stumbling footsteps stir,
Claws retract in numbing slumber.

© Stewart Stafford, 2023. All rights reserved.”
― Stewart Stafford

“She was much too enigmatical a being for me to solve in and hour's interview, and an instinct told me that the slightest attempt at direct cross-examination would make her withdraw into her shell; I could only sit still and watch, as one does in the woods; I must name my bird without a gun, as recommended by Emerson.”
― Richard B. Sewall

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― LIVER JAM & POPO (FRIENDLY LAND), Live Busty Adult Magazine October 1989 16 Sex Crazed Women

“If I Returned From The Land of Death by Stewart Stafford

If I returned from the land of Death,
Could I recall its vast domain?
To regale with tales of my last breath,
Or bury all such earthly pain?

Do infinite spirits teem astral skies,
Whispering, "Infant, be not afraid!"?
Ocean glare that blinds not the eyes,
Heartfelt welcomes can but persuade.

To see those I lost once more,
As smiles and greetings abound?
Why would I wade a waning shore,
To reject formless bliss so sound?

© 2025, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.”
― Stewart Stafford