Anne Carson Quotes

In each fire there is a spirit; Each one is wrapped in what is burning him.

The dimensions of my feelings are too violent.

There is scarcely any passion without struggle.

I am well in body although considerable rumpled up in spirit.

If I showed you what was in my heart," she said, "it would burn you to a cinder. "I've tried to burn you similarly," it said, "but you never even noticed when I opened my chest.

I, methought, while the sweet breath of heaven Was blowing on my body, felt within A correspondent breeze, that gently moved With quickening virtue, but is now become A tempest, a redundant energy, Vexing its own creation.

My heart beat Beats me senselessly Why's everything Gotta be so intense with me.

I feel too much. It's like being drummed to death from within. You know?

Look at it this way: There are many here among us for whom the life force is best represented by the livid twitching of one tortured nerve, or even a full-scale anxiety attack. I do not subscribe to this point of view 100 percent, but I understand it, have lived it. Thus the shriek, the caterwaul, the chainsaw gnarlgnashing, the yowl and the whizz that decapitates may be reheard by the adventurous or emotionally damaged as mellifluous bursts of unarguable affirmation.

Tally turned away. Five minutes was suddenly too long to stand here, eyes burning, unable to cry.

Love was the most savage monster of all.

I balance things better and don't kill myself so much, but conflict makes me a more interesting actress to watch. The places I go to pull emotions from, I think if you have a perfect, happy life, you just don't have those places. And I want those places. I'm proud of those places.

What can I expect from myself? My sensation in all their horrible acuity, and a profound awareness of feeling. A sharp mind that only destroys me, and an unusual capacity for dreaming to keep me entertained. A dead will and a reflection that cradles it, like a living child. From, The Book of Disquiet

I have a violence in me that is hot as death-blood.

It is as if my heart and my brain did not belong to the same person. Feelings come quicker than lightning and fill my soul, but they bring me no illumination; they burn me and dazzle me.

I held his gaze. I could see the storm in his eyes. I knew he was confused. I could see the fear. Then there was the love. I saw it. The fierceness in his eyes. I believed it. I could see it clearly. But it was too late now. The love wasn't enough. Everyone always said that love was enough. It wasn't. Not when your soul was shattered.

We burn so hard, but we shed so little light; it makes us crazy and sad.

When I look at my life and its secret colors, I feel like bursting into tears.

I told myself that if I didn't care, this wouldn't have hurt so much - surely that proved I was alive and human and all those touchy-feely things, for once and for all. But that wasn't a relief, not when I felt like a skyscraper with dynamite on every floor.

There is a soul-jealousy that can be as frantic as any body-jealousy.

The ocean of the body crashes against the ocean of the heart. Between them is a barrier they cannot cross.

I’ve been feeling something else. Like I’m about to be sucked into something powerful and painful.

I feel too much. That's what's going on.' 'Do you think one can feel too much? Or just feel in the wrong ways?' 'My insides don't match up with my outsides.' 'Do anyone's insides and outsides match up?' 'I don't know. I'm only me.' 'Maybe that's what a person's personality is: the difference between the inside and outside.' 'But it's worse for me.' 'I wonder if everyone thinks it's worse for him.' 'Probably. But it really is worse for me.

The disease of the heart is worse than the disease of the body.

The soul has more diseases than the body.