Decreation Quotes

“Here we go mother on the shipless ocean.
Pity us, pity the ocean, here we go.”
― Anne Carson, Decreation: Poetry, Essays, Opera

“What is a quote? A quote (cognate with quota) is a cut, a section, a slice of someone's orange. You suck the slice, toss the rind, skate away.”
― Anne Carson, Decreation: Poetry, Essays, Opera

“What is a quote? A quote (cognate with quota) is a cut, a section, a slice of someone else’s orange. You suck the slice, toss the rind, skate away. Part of what you enjoy in a documentary technique is the sense of banditry. To loot someone else’s life or sentences and make off with a point of view, which is called “objective” because you can make anything into an object by treating it this way, is exciting and dangerous.”
― Anne Carson, Decreation: Poetry, Essays, Opera

“I don't want to be a person. I want to be unbearable.”
― Anne Carson, Decreation: Poetry, Essays, Opera

“How long will it feel like burning, said the child trying to be kind.”
― Anne Carson, Decreation: Poetry, Essays, Opera

“THE PRESOCRATIC PROBLEM

[all snap flags]
Parmenides named his gun The Hot Power of the Stars. His gun was one, uncreated, imperishable, timeless, changeless, perfect, spherical. Spherical was the problem.”
― Anne Carson, Decreation: Poetry, Essays, Opera

“When an ecstatic is asked the question, What is it that love dares the self to do? she will answer: Love dares the self to leave itself behind, to enter into poverty.”
― Anne Carson, Decreation: Poetry, Essays, Opera

“Everything is a naked thought that strikes.”
― Anne Carson, Decreation: Poetry, Essays, Opera

“A foghorn sounding through fog makes the fog seem to be everything.”
― Anne Carson, Decreation: Poetry, Essays, Opera

“While talking to my mother I neaten things. Spines of books by the phone.
Paperclips
in a china dish. Fragments of eraser that dot the desk. She speaks
longingly
of death. I begin tilting all the paperclips in the other direction.
Out
the window snow is falling straight down in lines. To my mother,
love
of my life, I describe what I had for brunch. The lines are falling
faster
now.Fate has put little weights on the ends (to speed us up) I
want
to tell her—sign of God’s pity. She won’t keep me
she says, she
won’t run up my bill. Miracles slip past us. The
paperclips
are immortally aligned. God’s pity! How long
will
it feel like burning, said the child trying to be
kind.”
― Anne Carson, Decreation: Poetry, Essays, Opera

“Pregunta de Kant sobre Monica Vitti
Estaba oculta en ella y a Kant le producía un gran placer.
L’Eclisse empieza con el viento agitando el cabello de Monica Vitti. Ella está en un cuarto.

El placer de Kant era en parte negativo.
¿De dónde viene ese viento?

Kant se complacía en lo que él llamaba la Cosa en sí.
Ella va y viene por el cuarto mirando el suelo, mientras es observada fijamente
por un hombre en un sillón.

La Cosa en sí era inalcanzable, infranqueable.
Ella sigue intentando dejar el cuarto.

Ni podía representarse la Cosa en sí.
Las cortinas están corridas, el cuarto está lleno de objetos, las lámparas alumbran aquí y allá
¿quién puede decirme qué hora de la noche es? Su cabello se agita suavemente.

A pesar de la imposibilidad de su representación, la Cosa en sí podría
quedar inscrita dentro de los fenómenos.
Ella levanta un trozo de papel, lo baja.

Kant percibió un murmullo a un lado de las barreras sensatas.
Su inquietud deriva en ella, se desborda, sigue a la deriva.

Se ve un abanico giratorio sobre la mesa a un lado del hombre en el sillón.
Kant se sintió frágil como una ola.

Ahora ella puede irse. La superficie de la película se relaja.
Kant dejó que su alma se expandiera.

Ella camina hacia la sucia luz del día.
Kant afianzó su sombrero.

Ella se siente un tanto avergonzada pero contenta de caminar.
Se aleja en ese más difícil amanecer.”
― Anne Carson, Decreation: Poetry, Essays, Opera