Date: 1791, 1794

"His visit was not long, but before he went he fixed a scorpion in the heart of Charlotte, whose venom embittered every future hour of her life."

— Rowson, Susanna (1762-1828)

Date: 1963

"What I didn't say was that each time I picked up a German dictionary or a German book, the very sight of those dense, black, barbed-wire letters made my mind shut like a clam."

— Plath, Sylvia (1932-1963)

Date: 1963

"I stored the fact that there were real glasses in the corner of my mind the way a squirrel stores a nut."

— Plath, Sylvia (1932-1963)

Date: 1963

"I tried to think what I had loved knives for, but my mind slipped from the noose of the thought and swung, like a bird, in the center of empty air."

— Plath, Sylvia (1932-1963)

Date: 1999

"A soul was like a worm in an apple, my mother told me."

— Offill, Jenny (b. 1968)

Date: 1999

"Just as birds are lifted up into the air by their feathers and can remain wherever they wish, the soul in the body is elevated by thought and spreads its wings everywhere."

— Offill, Jenny (b. 1968)

Date: 2015

"His thoughts on his back porch surrounded him like a carpet of mice, immobilizing him via his unwillingness to cause them pain. The mice of introspection were as effective as any buffalo herd."

— Zink, Nell (b. 1964)