Quotes from Margaret Anderson

Self-preservation is the first responsibility.

Life for me has been exactly what I thought it would be, a cake, which I have eaten and had too.

I was as repelled by the French as I was attracted by their country.

My greatest enemy is reality. I have fought it successfully for thirty years.

It is rarely that you see an American writer who is not hopelessly sane.

Intellectuals are too sentimental for me.

I have always fought for ideas - until I learned that it isn't ideas but grief, struggle, and flashes of vision which enlighten.

In real love you want the other person's good.

My unreality is chiefly this: I have never felt much like a human being. It's a splendid feeling.

I defied nothing at all. I ignored the law because I didn't know it existed. It didn't occur to me that anyone would want to curb my inspiration.

This is the most beautiful thing we'll ever have to publish. Let us print it if it's the last effort of our lives! -on publishing Ulysses

I believe in the unsubmissive, the unfaltering, the unassailable, the irresistible, the unbelievable — in other words, in an art of life.

As I look at the human story I see two stories. They run parallel and never meet. One is of people who live, as they can or must, the events that arrive; the other is of people who live, as they intend, the events they create.

I have always rebelled against the unadorned, the unbefitting, the unawakened, the unresisting, the undesirable, the unplanned, the unshapely, the uncommitted, the unattempted -- all leading to the unintended. I believe in the unsubmissive, the unflattering, the unassailable, the irresistible, the unbelievable -- in other words, in an art of life.

With us, love is just as punishable as murder or robbery…