Quotes By Author: Anne Carson

“Prowling the meanings of a word, prowling the history of a person, no use expecting a flood of light. Human words have no main switch. But all those little kidnaps in the dark. And then the luminous, big, shivering, discandied, unrepentant, barking web of them that hangs in your mind when you turn back to the page you were trying to translate…”

“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.”

“[Short Talk on the Sensation of Airplane Takeoff] Well you know I wonder, it could be love running toward my life with its arms up yelling let’s buy it what a bargain!”

“Here we go mother on the shipless ocean.Pity us, pity the ocean, here we go.”

“Then the edge asserts itself. You are not a god. You are not that enlarged self. Indeed, you are not even a whole self, as you now see. Your new knowledge of possibilities is also a knowledge of what is lacking in the actual.”

“Words bounce. Words, if you let them, will do what they want to do and what they have to do.”

“To be running breathlessly, but not yet arrived, is itself delightful, a suspended moment of living hope.”

“Come here, let me share a bit of wisdom with you.Have you given much thought to our mortal condition?Probably not. Why would you? Well, listen.All mortals owe a debt to death.There’s no one alivewho can say if he will be tomorrow.Our fate moves invisibly! A mystery.No one can teach it, no one can grasp it.Accept this! Cheer up! Have a drink!But don’t forget Aphrodite–that’s one sweet goddess.You can let the rest go. Am I making sense?I think so. How about a drink.Put on a garland. I’m surethe happy splash of wine will cure your mood.We’re all mortal you know. Think mortal.Because my theory is, there’s no such thing as life,it’s just catastrophe.”

“CHORUSMany are the shapes of things divine.Many are the unexpected acts of gods.What we imagined did not come to pass –God found a wayto be surprising.That’s how this went.”

“THE PRESOCRATIC PROBLEM[all snap flags]Parmenides named his gun The Hot Power of the Stars. His gun was one, uncreated, imperishable, timeless, changeless, perfect, spherical. Spherical was the problem.”