THE PRESOCRATIC PROBLEM [all s...

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.

Here we go mother on the shipl...

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

Men know almost nothing about ...

Men know almost nothing about desire, they think it has to do with sexual activity or can be discharged that way. But sex is a substitute, like money or language. Sometimes I just want to stop seeing.

Sometimes a journey makes itse...

Sometimes a journey makes itself necessary.

Desire doubled is love and lov...

Desire doubled is love and love doubled is madness.

As Sokrates tells it, your sto...

As Sokrates tells it, your story begins the moment Eros enters you. That incursion is the biggest risk of your life. How you handle it is an index of the quality, wisdom, and decorum of the things inside you. As you handle it you come into contact with what is inside you, in a sudden and startling way. You perceive what you are, what you lack, what you could be.

A thinking mind is not swallow...

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.

I do think I have an ability t...

I do think I have an ability to record sensual and emotional facts and factoids, to construct a convincing surface of what life feels like, both physical life and emotional life.

To live past the end of your m...

To live past the end of your myth is a perilous thing.

My religion makes no sense

My religion makes no sense
and does not help me
therefore I pursue it.

Anne Carson 03.03.2018 03:03:03 103 quotes

It is for God to fix the time ...

It is for God to fix the time who knows no time,

A page with a poem on it is le...

A page with a poem on it is less attractive than a page with a poem on it and some tea stains.

All human desire is poised on ...

All human desire is poised on an axis of paradox, absence and presence its poles, love and hate its motive energies.

Up against another human being...

Up against another human being one's own procedures take on definition

I never had much education in ...

I never had much education in English poetry as such,

What is the fear inside langua...

What is the fear inside language? No accident of the body can make it stop burning.

Words bounce. Words, if you le...

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

That night we made love 'the ...

That night we made love 'the real way' which we had not yet attempted although married six months. Big mystery. No one knew where to put their leg and to this day I'm not sure we got it right. He seemed happy. You're like Venice he said beautifully. Early next day I wrote a short talk ('On Defloration') which he stole and had published in a small quarterly magazine. Overall this was a characteristic interaction between us. Or should I say ideal. Neither of us had ever seen Venice.

Myths are stories about people...

Myths are stories about people who become too big for their lives temporarily, so that they crash into other lives or brush against gods. In crisis their souls are visible.

You used to say. 'Desire doub...

You used to say. 'Desire doubled is love and love doubled is madness.' Madness doubled is marriage I added when the caustic was cool, not intending to produce a golden rule.