Quotes from Kathy Acker

glory be to those humans who are absolutely NOTHING for the opinions of other humans: they are the true owners of illusions, transformations and themselves

Maps are dreams: both describe desire, where you want to go, but never the reality of the destination.

We live by the images of those we decide are heroes and gods.

All my life I've dreamt dreams that, after the initial dreaming, stayed with me and kept telling me how to perceive and consider all that happens to me. Dreams run through my skin and veins, coloring all that lies beneath.

There's no more education, no more culture - if culture depends on a commonly understood history - and perhaps no more middle class in the United States. There's War.

Since an emotion's an announcement of value, in this society of the death (of values) emotions moved like zombies through humans.

Cause I'm sick too. At this point sicker than you. My disease is forever. I know no comfort. Since we're both maniacs, let's be nice to each other. I myself want to live. I want to burn. all I ask is no one loves me in return.

Because of Warhol, we were no longer freaks, outside society. It's really partly because of Warhol that I can now get angry when people treat me as an outsider, as in Brisbane char Nicholas Zurbrugg, tattooed and pierced, because of Warhol (to begin with) I don't even have to think to reply, if you think chat, you're the freak. I am society as much as you.

Even if I do attain some goal, at that very moment the only thing that's important to me is to go beyond that which is no longer a goal but now only a stage.

I used to have a fantasy you loved me. Then I had a fantasy some man could love me. Now I can't find any fantasy inside my head. I can't find anything.

The quality of life in this city stinks. Is almost nothing. Most people now are deaf-mutes only inside they're screaming. BLOOD. A lot of blood inside is going to fall. MORE and MORE because inside is outside.

One day she yelled, You're always naked except for that bunch of skulls around your neck. In which maggots're living. That you never take off. And you're odoriferous. In a bad way. You think that death's sexy, that's why you stink most of the time; of rot and foul, fetid fur, but you smell worst when you're about to come.

I'm sick of this society. 'Earn a living' as if I'm not yet living; lobotomized and robotized from birth, they tell me I can't do anything I want to do in the subtlest and sneakiest ways possible.

'cause humans, above all, fear intelligence. how humans, scared out of their minds, gather whatever intelligence they can put their hands on and put it all in a central penitentiary named facts.

One of the reasons I think the ultra right-wing has such power in this country is that no one talks out.

The literary culture, if you examine it, the high literary culture is that which preserves the government and you know it's really the talk for those who have.

In such a society as ours the only possible chance for change, for mobility, for political, economic, and moral flow lies in the tactics of guerrilla warfare, in the use of fictions, of language.

But guys such as Allen and William are more supportive than most men.

That's what the right-wing is good at: figuring out the left wing.

I'm really fascinated and you know I've been wondering about that usage of language, various breathing techniques and why in these practices language is being used in another way.

Well, I think writing is basically about time and rhythm. Like with jazz. You have your basic melody and then you just riff off of it. And the riffs are about timing.

And internalization is used in this country as a very effective political tool.

Love goes away when your mind goes away and then you're someone else.

I understand that when people read my books that there's something there - but I don't identify with it.