Ice Quotes

“Reality had always been something of an unknown quantity to me.”
― Anna Kavan, Ice

“As her fate, she accepted the world of ice, shining, shimmering, dead; she resigned herself to the triumph of glaciers and the death of the world.”
― Anna Kavan, Ice

“My ideas were confused. In a peculiar way, the unreality of the outer world appeared to be an extension of my own disturbed state of mind.”
― Anna Kavan, Ice

“I had a curious feeling that I was living on several planes simultaneously; the overlapping of these planes was confusing.”
― Anna Kavan, Ice

“Something in her demanded victimization and terror, so she corrupted my dreams, led me into dark places I had no wish to explore. It was no longer clear to me which of us was the victim. Perhaps we were victims of one another.”
― Anna Kavan, Ice

“Instead of my world, there would soon be only ice, snow, stillness, death; no more violence, no war, no victims; nothing but frozen silence, absence of life. The ultimate achievement of mankind would be, not just self-destruction, but the destruction of all life; the transformation of the living world into a dead planet.”
― Anna Kavan, Ice

“I had never before met anyone who owned a telephone and believed in dragons.”
― Anna Kavan, Ice

“So many dreams are crowding upon me now that I can scarcely tell true from false: dreams like light imprisoned in bright mineral caves; hot, heavy dreams; ice-age dreams; dreams like machines in the head.”
― Anna Kavan, Ice

“Her albino hair illuminated my dreams, shining brighter than moonlight.”
― Anna Kavan, Ice

“The past had vanished and become nothing; the future was the inconceivable nothingness of annihilation. All that was left was the ceaselessly shrinking fragment of time called 'now'.”
― Anna Kavan, Ice

“Reality had always been something of an unknown quantity to me. At times this could be disturbing.”
― Anna Kavan, Ice

“She herself did not seem quite real. She was pale and almost transparent, the victim I used for my own enjoyment in dreams.”
― Anna Kavan, Ice

“What I saw had no solidity, it was all made of mist and nylon, with nothing behind.”
― Anna Kavan, Ice

“Below, the fjord was an impossible icy volcano erupting the baleful fire of the swallowed sun.”
― Anna Kavan, Ice

“She was trying to become invisible in the snow. Sudden terror had seized her: the thought of the man whose ice-blue eyes had a magnetic power which could deprive her of will and thrust her down into hallucination and horror. The fear she lived with, always near her, close behind the world's normal façade, had become concentrated on him. And there was another connected with him, they were in league together, or perhaps they were the same person.
Both of them persecuted her, she did not understand why. But she accepted the fact as she accepted all the things that happened to her, expecting to be ill-treated, to be made a victim, ultimately to be destroyed, either by unknown forces or by human beings. This fate seemed always to have been waiting for her, ever since time began. Only love might have saved her from it. But she had never looked for love. Her part was to suffer; that was known and accepted. Fatality brought resignation. It was no use fighting against her fate. She knew she had been beaten before the start.”
― Anna Kavan, Ice

“I said I wanted to see her. ‘You can’t.’ He turned the key, dropped it into his pocket, threw a pistol down on the table. ‘She’s dead.’ A knife went through me. All other deaths in the world were outside; this one was in my body, like a bayonet, like my own.”
― Anna Kavan, Ice

“She was over-sensitive, highly strung, afraid of people and life; her personality had been damaged by a sadistic mother who kept her in a permanent state of frightened subjection.”
― Anna Kavan, Ice

“It seemed to me we were fighting against the ice, which was all the while coming steadily nearer, covering more of the world with its dead silence, its awful white peace. By making war we asserted the fact that we were alive and opposed the icy death creeping over the globe.”
― Anna Kavan, Ice

“To speak of the catastrophe was an offense under the new regulations. The rule was to choose not to know. Remembering how I myself had wished to forget on another occasion, I understood the euphoric blindness without condoning it.”
― Anna Kavan, Ice

“The masses of dense foliage all round became prison walls, impassable circular green ice-walls, surging towards her; just before they closed in, I caught the terrified glint of her eyes.

On a winter day she was in the studio, posing for him in the nude, her arms raised in a graceful position. To hold it for any length of time must have been a strain, I wondered how she managed to keep so still; until I saw the cords attached to her wrists and ankles.

Instead of the darkness, she faced a stupendous sky-conflagration, an incredible glacial dream-scene. Cold coruscations of rainbow fire pulsed overhead, shot through by shafts of pure incandescence thrown out by mountains of solid ice towering all round. Closer, the trees round the house, sheathed in ice, dripped and sparkled with weird prismatic jewels, reflecting the vivid changing cascades above. Instead of the familiar night sky, the aurora borealis formed a blazing, vibrating roof of intense cold and colour, beneath which the earth was trapped with all its inhabitants, walled in by those impassable glittering ice-cliffs. The world had become an arctic prison from which no escape was possible, all its creatures trapped as securely as were the trees, already lifeless inside their deadly resplendent armour.

Frozen by the deathly cold emanating from the ice, dazzled by the blaze of crystalline ice-light, she felt herself becoming part of the polar vision, her structure becoming one with the structure of ice and snow. As her fate, she accepted the world of ice, shining, shimmering, dead; she resigned herself to the triumph of glaciers and the death of her world.

Fear was the climate she lived in; if she had ever known kindness it would have been different. The trees seemed to obstruct her with deliberate malice. All her life she had thought of herself as a foredoomed victim, and now the forest had become the malign force that would destroy her. In desperation she tried to run, but a hidden root tripped her, she almost fell. Branches caught in her hair, tugged her back, lashed out viciously when they were disentangled. The silver hairs torn from her head glittered among black needles; they were the clues her pursuers would follow, leading them to their victim. She escaped from the forest at length only to see the fjord waiting for her. An evil effluence rose from the water, something primitive, savage, demanding victims, hungry for a human victim.

It had been night overhead all along, but below it was still daylight. There were no clouds. I saw islands scattered over the sea, a normal aerial view. Then something extraordinary, out of this world: a wall of rainbow ice jutting up from the sea, cutting right across, pushing a ridge of water ahead of it as it moved, as if the flat pale surface of sea was a carpet being rolled up. It was a sinister, fascinating sight, which did not seem intended for human eyes. I stared down at it, seeing other things at the same time. The ice world spreading over our world. Mountainous walls of ice surrounding the girl. Her moonwhite skin, her hair sparkling with diamond prisms under the moon. The moon’s dead eye watching the death of our world.”
― Anna Kavan, Ice

“Нереальность внешнего мира казалась своеобразным продолжением моего собственного, пребывавшего в серьезном расстройстве сознания.”
― Анна Каван, Ice

“But she accepted the fact as she accepted all the things that happened to her, expecting to be ill-treated, to be made a victim, ultimately to be destroyed, either by unknown forces or by human beings. The fate seemed always to have been waiting for her, even since time began. Only love might have saved her from it. But she had never looked for love. Her part was to suffer; that was known and accepted. Fatality brought resignation. It was no use fighting her fate. She knew she has been beaten before the start.”
― Anna Kavan, Ice

“Alone with my companion, I felt closer to him than ever before; we were like brothers, like identical twin brothers. Drawn to him more strongly than I had ever been, I had to give my feelings some expression, told him how much I appreciated his kindness, how greatly I was honored to be his friend. Something was wrong. He did not smile or acknowledge the compliment, but abruptly stood up. I got up too, while across the water the animals fled, alarmed by our movements. The atmosphere was changing round me; suddenly there was a chill, as if the warm air had passed over ice. I felt a sudden uncomprehended terror, like the sensation that comes in nightmares just before one begins to fall.”
― Anna Kavan, Ice

“We changed places. I was tired after my stint of driving and shut my eyes. When I opened them again he had a gun lying across his knees. I asked what he expected to shoot. “We’re getting near the frontier. It’s dangerous here. Enemies everywhere.” “But this country is neutral.” “What’s neutral? It’s just a word.” He added mysteriously: “Besides, there are various kinds of enemies.” “Such as?” “Saboteurs. Spies. Gangsters. All sorts of scoundrels who flourish in times of disorder.” I asked if he thought the lorry would be attacked. “It has happened. The stuff we’ve got on board is urgently needed. If they’ve got to hear about it they may try to stop us.”
― Anna Kavan, Ice

“Stretched out on her bed, she could feel the hostile, alien, freezing dark pressed to the wall like the ear of a listening enemy. In the utter silence and solitude, she lay watching the mirror, waiting for her fate to arrive. It would not be long now. She knew that something fearful was going to happen in the soundproof room, where nobody could or would come to her rescue. The room was antagonistic as it always had been. She was aware of the walls refusing protection, of the frigid hostility in the air. There was nothing she could do, no one to whom she could appeal. Abandoned, helpless, she could only wait for the end.”
― Anna Kavan, Ice

“It was no longer clear to me which of us was the victim. Perhaps we were victims of one another.”
― Anna Kavan, Ice

“An insane impatience for death was driving mankind to a second suicide, even before the full effect of the first had been felt.”
― Anna Kavan, Ice

“The ultimate achievement of mankind would be, not just self-destruction, but the destruction of all life; the transformation of the living world into a dead planet.”
― Anna Kavan, Ice

“Systematic bullying when she was most vulnerable had distorted the structure of her personality, made a victim of her, to be destroyed, either by things or by human beings, people or fjords and forests; it made no difference, in any case she could not escape. The irreparable damage inflicted had long ago rendered her fate inevitable.”
― Anna Kavan, Ice

“The world had become an arctic prison from which no escape was possible, all its creatures trapped as securely as were the trees, already lifeless inside their deadly resplendent armour.”
― Anna Kavan, Ice