Angela Carter Quotes

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Nostalgia, the vice of the aged. We watch so many old movies our memories come in monochrome.

Angela Carter

Memories, Vices, Watches

Angela Carter (2012). “Wise Children”, p.10, Random House

62 Copy quote
A book is simply the container of an idea-like a bottle; what is inside the book is what matters.

Angela Carter

Book, Writing, What Matters

Angela Carter (1997). “Shaking a Leg: Journalism and Writings”, Vintage

12 Copy quote
Language is power, life and the instrument of culture, the instrument of domination and liberation.

Angela Carter

Culture, Language And Power, Instruments

Angela Carter (1998). “Shaking a Leg: Collected Writings”, Penguin Group USA

12 Copy quote
Cities have sexes: London is a man, Paris a woman, and New York a well-adjusted transsexual.

Angela Carter

Sex, New York, Men

Angela Carter (1997). “Shaking a Leg: Journalism and Writings”, Vintage

14 Copy quote
I don't really think that writers, even great writers, are prophets, or sages, or Messiah-like figures; writing is a lonely, sedentary occupation and a touch of megalomania can be comforting around five on a November afternoon when you haven't seen anybody all day.

Angela Carter

Lonely, Writing, Thinking

Angela Carter (1997). “Shaking a Leg: Journalism and Writings”, Vintage

11 Copy quote
A day without an argument is like an egg without salt.

Angela Carter

Eggs, Literature, Salt

Angela Carter (1997). “Shaking a Leg: Journalism and Writings”, Vintage

11 Copy quote
His touch both consoles and devastates me; I feel my heart pulse, then wither, naked as a stone on the roaring mattress while the lovely, moony night slides through the window to dapple the flanks of this innocent who makes cages to keep the sweet birds in. Eat me, drink me; thirsty, cankered, goblin-ridden, I go back and back to him to have his fingers strip the tattered skin away and clothe me in his dress of water, this garment that drenches me, its slithering odour, its capacity for drowning.

Angela Carter

Sweet, Heart, Night

10 Copy quote
We must all make do with the rags of love we find flapping on the scarecrow of humanity.

Angela Carter

Humanity, Rags, Scarecrow

Angela Carter (1984). “Nights at the circus”, Vintage

21 Copy quote
I think it's one of the scars in our culture that we have too high an opinion of ourselves. We align ourselves with the angels instead of the higher primates.

Angela Carter

Angel, Thinking, Culture

"The Company of Angela Carter". "Marxism Today" Magazine, January 1985.

57 Copy quote
What a joy it is to dance and sing!

Angela Carter

Dance, Joy

34 Copy quote
She herself is a haunted house. She does not possess herself; her ancestors sometimes come and peer out of the windows of her eyes and that is very frightening. from "The Lady of the Haunted House

Angela Carter

Eye, House, Doe

7 Copy quote
Reading a book is like re-writing it for yourself. You bring to a novel, anything you read, all your experience of the world. You bring your history and you read it in your own terms.

Angela Carter

Book, Reading, Writing

23 Copy quote
Soon, nostalgia will be another name for Europe.

Angela Carter

Europe, Names, Nostalgia

Angela Carter (1993). “Expletives Deleted: Selected Writings”, Vintage Books

4 Copy quote
Drosselmeier had unwittingly exposed himself to an overdose of reality, and it had destroyed his reason.

Angela Carter

Reality, Reason, Surrealism

5 Copy quote
Reading a book is like re-writing it for yourself.

Angela Carter

Book, Reading, Writing

3 Copy quote
The wolf is carnivore incarnate and he's as cunning as he is ferocious; once he's had a taste of flesh then nothing else will do.

Angela Carter

Flesh, Taste, Carnivores

Angela Carter (1997). “Burning your boats: the collected short stories”, Penguin Group USA

3 Copy quote
It shone on everyone, whether they had a contract or not. The most democratic thing I'd ever seen, that California sunshine.

Angela Carter

Sunshine, California, Contracts

3 Copy quote
The child's laughter is pure until he first laughs at a clown.

Angela Carter

Laughter, Children, Laughing

Angela Carter (1984). “Nights at the circus”, Vintage

3 Copy quote
To pin your hopes upon the future is to consign those hopes to a hypothesis, which is to say, a nothingness. Here and now is what we must contend with.

Angela Carter

Literature, Pins, Hypothesis

3 Copy quote
In a world where women are commodities, a woman who refuses to sell herself will have the thing she refuses to sell taken away from her by force

Angela Carter

Taken, World, Commodity

Angela Carter (2015). “The Sadeian Woman: An Exercise in Cultural History”, p.32, Hachette UK

2 Copy quote
Moonlight, white satin, roses. A bride.

Angela Carter

White, Rose, Moonlight

13 Copy quote
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.

Angela Carter

Life, God, Mother

Angela Carter (2015). “The Sadeian Woman: An Exercise in Cultural History”, p.7, Hachette UK

16 Copy quote
Anticipation is the greater part of pleasure.

Angela Carter

Anticipation, Pleasure, Greater

Angela Carter (1997). “Burning your boats: the collected short stories”, Penguin Group USA

0 Copy quote
A broken heart is never a tragedy. Only untimely death is a tragedy.

Angela Carter

Heart, Broken, Tragedy

Angela Carter (2012). “Wise Children”, p.153, Random House

1 Copy quote
Anxiety is the beginning of conscience, which is the parent of the soul but is not compatible with innocence.

Angela Carter

Parent, Anxiety, Soul

Angela Carter (1984). “Nights at the circus”, Vintage

7 Copy quote

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Born: May 7, 1940
Died: February 16, 1992
Occupation: Novelist
Cite this Page: Citation

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