Quotes from Eileen Myles

catholic poets only pray, no matter what they say

We're basking in language itself. The silence of my friend. My love. The one beyond words in her silence. She is always eternally before. When she speaks it is shit, a gift, something to do. In our moment, of waiting, pointing, silent gear, what we went out for—that is pointing. Shit is the award. The award is shit.

I think being with a person is better than caring about them. I cared about them. I cared about them more than their relatives did, and I didn't care about them at all.

Lucifer's name means light and the reason they threw him out of heaven and he became the biggest devil and not the biggest saint anymore was what he did with language.

I hope you all find yourselves sleeping with someone you love, maybe not all of the time, but a lot of the time. The touch of a foot in the night is sincere.

Awards are the only currency Amercian writing has to describe a writer's work.

cunt. I read once that the most powerful kind of reinforcement is occasional. It was in fact a dog-training book and it's the closest thing to the truth I know. It's the law. If you want your dog to act like a beggar, feed her from the table once in a while. Feed her maybe the day you bring her home and not again until she is ten and then twice a week.

It seemed like people then had a lot of feelings and you could get all bundled up like Eli had and brood with them for a while, or you could recoil entirely like I was doing (for professional reasons) and consider your behavior just art, grist for the mill.

I come and go. An edible saint. But if you feast on me you will be hungry.

What is it about the January feeling— past everything else, low-glowing hunger that propels me around

The State tells the epic of people's lives, putting people on the scale, weighing all the wrong things, then acting ponderous about the misinformation.

I write because I would like to be used for years after my death.

why shouldn't something I have always known be the very best there is.

Who doesn't envy a child's endless sense of things. Not that they have it but it's what they feel. It's what we're born to know. A sensation of being unhampered by anything except adults.

Finally I sent her a postcard with a dolphin leaping through a flaming hoop on its front. When you wiggled the postcard the dolphin leapt through. I felt that said it all and I had just quit jumping for her.

Watching the fragments float by for years.

Or the angry ones. Holding their heads oh no like a virus is taking over. My mind! Like it's such a big deal. Minds are always being taken over. Succumb, don't resist. Because we do get to choose what we are succumbing to. We create worlds out of what we put into our heads. I don't know about you. It's why I read.

I'm from a family of readers. Not of great books, but of great reading

every cow that jumps off the truck can be free will you jump with me

are you writing a book or are you just in your house

Later on I published these poems as Sappho's Boat to make damn sure everyone knew what I meant.

GömleÄŸimi ç?kard?m ve hiç kimseye dönüÅŸtüm, isimsiz, cinsiyetsiz, yaln?zca bir arazide bir köpekle etrafta gezinen bir canl?. Bana bunu sanat getirdi.

kalbim ya da daha eski bir yerim iflas edecekti. I????m.

Listen, I have been educated. I have learned about Western Civilization. Do you know What the message of Western Civilization is? I am alone.