Quotes from Angela Carter

Mother goddesses are just as silly a notion as father gods. If a revival of the myths of these cults gives woman emotional satisfaction, it does so at the price of obscuring the real conditions of life. This is why they were invented in the first place.

The excremental enthusiasm of the libertines transforms the ordure in which they roll to a bed of roses.

To obtain his precious orgasm, the libertine must now hunt it down single-mindedly through seas of blood and excrement.

Losing their names, these things underwent a process of uncreation and reverted to chaos, existing only to themselves in an unstructured world . . . surrounding the outposts of man.

Bu tatl? seste sanki tekinsiz olan bir ÅŸey varm??, ya bu sesin sahibi büyücüymüÅŸ ya da bir büyünün etkisindeymiÅŸ gibi geldi odadakilere. Üçü de tüylerinin diken diken olduÄŸunu hissettiler. [sf 184]

Que yo y otras muchas mujeres vayamos buscando heroínas de cuento de hadas en los libros es otra versión del mismo proceso: deseo validar mi reivindicación a poseer una parte equitativa del futuro, y expreso para ello la exigencia de que me concedan la parte del pasado que me corresponde.

Palyaço maskesinin alt?nda yatan o yüz, uzun y?llar önce tan???p sevilmiÅŸ, sonra da kaybedilmiÅŸ, ÅŸimdi de yeniden bulunmuÅŸ bir sevgilinin yüzü. Onunla daha önce hç kar??laÅŸmam?? olmama, bana tümüyle yabanc? bir yüz olmas?na kar??n, görüp tan?mamdan bile önce vurgun olduÄŸum bir yüz bu. [sf 288]

For I am not natural, you know - even though, if you cut me, I will bleed.

Y comprendió que muchas cosas que había dado por sentadas, muchas cosas que creía sencillas y domésticas, eran en realidad verdaderos lujos.

I soldi sono sprecati per i ricchi [...] E per converso - continuò a rimuginare con un sorriso di scherno per quello che la circondava-, la povertà è sprecata per i poveri, che sono come i ricchi, solo senza quattrini, non sanno trarre partito da nulla, sono incapaci di badare a sé o di amministrare i loro soldi e, al pari dei ricchi, sperperano tutto in oggetti inutili di pura apparenza.

I had always held a little towards Gulliver's opinion, that horses are better than we are, and, that day, I would have been glad to depart with him to the kingdom of horses, if I'd been given the chance.

What joy it is to dance and sing!

Juliette's story-telling function is itself part of her whorishness. She is a perfect whore. . . . they know how to utilize the power of the word, of narrative, to save their lives. The continuity of their narratives protects them from the discontinuity of death.

he had examined the world by the light of the intellect alone and had seen a totally different construction from that which the senses see by the light of reason.

The Sadeian woman, then, subverts only her own socially conditioned role in the world of god, the king and the law. She does not subvert her society, except incidentally, as a storm trooper of the individual consciousness. She remains in the area of privilege created by her class, just as Sade remains in the philosophical framework of his time.

He is on the point of becoming a revolutionary pornographer, but he, finally, lacks the courage.

I will vanish in the morning light; I was only an invention of darkness. And I leave you as a souvenir the dark, fanged rose I plucked from between my thighs, like a flower laid on a grave.

I think I want to be in love with you but I don't know how.

The function of the fool in the Elizabethan drama, a reference point outside events but inside another kind of logic, the remorseless logic of unreason where all vision is deranged, all action uncoordinated and all responses beyond prediction.

They put away their books was only poor girls earning a living, for, though some of the customers would swear that whores do it for pleasure, that is only to ease their own consciences, so that they will feel less foolish when they fork out hard cash for pleasure

The one-eyed man will be King in the country of the blind only if he arrives there in full possession of his partial faculties -- that is, providing he is perfectly aware of the precise nature of sight and does not confuse it with second sight, nor with the mind's eye's visions, nor with madness.

I raised you up to fly to the heavens, not to brood over a clutch of eggs!

One of Sade's cruellest lessons is that tyranny is implicit in all privilege. My freedom makes you more unfree, if it does not acknowledge your freedom, also.

What I do feel, really, is that I am a lot more ordinary than I thought. This probably only means I've come to terms with being peculiar; possibly, also, the time for existential leaps is over and I am myself, now.