*Skeptically sighing*

Here's the link

Whitley Bay, Tyneside - c2001

quotes are all taken from various poems and essays by the queen of aesthetes, anne carson. feel free to change pronouns/add things/etc if needed.

‘ you are not a god. ’

‘ we begin in the dark and birth is the death of us. ’

‘ now you’ve crowned yourself one final perfect time. ’

‘ [ name ] was a monster. everything about him was red. ’

‘ what are we made of but hunger and rage? ’

‘ i finally decided that understanding isn’t what grief is about. ’

‘ honey is the sleep of the just. ’

‘ it is perilous to live past the end of your myth. ’

‘ you remember too much. ’

‘ when i desire you a part of me is gone. ’

‘ humans in love are terrible. ’

‘ under the seams runs the pain. ’

‘ men know almost nothing about desire. ’

‘ sex is a substitute, like money or language. ’

‘ what is the holiness of conversation? ’

‘ —you burn me. ’

‘ i ask this one thing: let me go mad in my own way. ’

‘ sometimes i just want to stop seeing. ’

‘ we’re all mortal, you know. ’

‘ i am the shape you made me. filth teaches filth. ’

‘ why does tragedy exist? ’

‘ you’re a beauty. ’

‘ madness and witchery are conditions commonly associated with the female voice. ’

‘ it made me merciless. ’

‘ desire is no light thing. ’

‘ i do not exist. there is nothing left. ’

‘ gods are stubborn. so am i. ’

‘ we had been seduced into thinking that we were immortal. ’

‘ i am someone who did not die when i should have died. ’

‘ why are you so in love with things unbearable? ’

‘ everything can collapse. ’

‘ someone will remember us. even in another time. ’

‘ my mind is burning. ’

‘ each night, about this time, he puts on sadness like a garment and goes on writing. ’

‘ love does not make me gentle or kind. ’

‘ i can give you reasons not do die. ’

‘ passivity is killing her. ’

‘ they are victims of love, many of them. ’

‘ he is a young god. ’

‘ you touch my soul, you pain my mind. ’

‘ it’s something of a cliché to say that we all think we’re monsters. ’

‘ i fear your sorrows make your tongue grow wild. ’

‘ it’s what they call ‘ecstasy’. ’

‘ a man who can’t die is no tragic hero. ’ 

‘ i want everything. ’

‘ it was like a beautiful dance where your partner turns and stabs you to death. ’

‘ to survive you need an edge. ’

‘ girls are cruelest to themselves. ’

‘ we are dust. ’

bonus! further quotations from award-winning poet and author anne carson:

‘ i am a philosopher of sandwiches. ’

‘ pilgrims were people glad to take off their clothing, which was on fire. ’

‘ english is a bitch. ’

anais nin

which hurts just enough to be a scar.

And heals just enough to be a nation.

MIKE FLANAGAN UNIVERSE + GHOSTS

Virginia Woolf, in a letter to Vita Sackville-West, February 1927.