Sylvia Plath at 19

"Being born a woman is my awful tragedy. Yes, my consuming desire to mingle with road crews, sailors and solders, barroom regulars--to be part of a scene, anonymous, listening, recording--is all spoiled by the fact that I am a girl, a female always in danger of assault and battery. My consuming interest in men and their lives is often misconstructed as a desire to seduce them, or as an invitation to intimacy. Yes, God, I want to talk to everybody as deeply as I can. I want to be able to sleep in an open field, to travel west, to walk freely at night."