277 Quotes by Anne Carson

Could you visit me in dreams? That would cheer me.Sweet to see friends in the night, however short the time.

A thinking mind is not swallowed up by what it comes to know. It reaches out to grasp something related to itself and to its present knowledge (and so knowable in some degree) but also separate from itself and from its present knowledge (not identical with these). In any act of thinking, the mind must reach across this space between known and unknown, linking one to the other but also keeping visible to difference. It is an erotic space.

Friends disappear or they are powerless. This is what misfortune meansan acid test of friendship.I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

He picked his way carefullytoward the sex question. Why is it a question? He understoodthat people needacts of attention from one another, does it really matter which acts?

Now every mortal has painand sweat is constant,but if there is anything dearer than being alive,it's dark to me.We humans seem disastrously in love with this thing(whatever it is) that glitters on the earth--we call it life. We know no other.The underworld's a blankand all the rest just fantasy.

Banal sexism aside,I find myself temptedto read Wuthering Heights as one thick stacked act of revengefor all that life withheld from Emily.But the poetry shows traces of a deeper explanation.As if anger could be a kind of vocation for some women.It is a chilly thought.

DEATH. . .And now you are here to fight for this woman.You know her promise is given.She has to die or her husband won't go free.APOLLORelax, I'm not breaking any laws.DEATHWhy the bow, if you're breaking no laws?APOLLOI always carry a bow, it's my trademark.

To feel anything deranges you. To be seenfeeling anything strips younaked. In the grip of itpleasure or pain doesn’tmatter. You think whatwill they do what newpower will they acquire ifthey see me naked likethis. If they see youfeeling. You have no ideawhat. It’s not about them.To be seen is the penalty.

The words we read and words we write never say exactly what we mean. The people we love are never just as we desire them. The two symbola never perfectly match. Eros is in between.