Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Anne Carson

Quote by Anne Carson

“Early one morning words were missing. Before that, words were not. Facts were, faces were. In a good story, Aristotle tells us, everything that happens is pushed by something else. Three old women were bending in the fields. What use is it to question us? they said. Well it shortly became clear that they knew everything there is to know about the snowy fields and the blue-green shoots and the plant called "audacity," which poets mistake for violets. I began to copy out everything that was said. The marks construct an instant of nature gradually, without the boredom of a story. I emphasize this. I will do anything to avoid boredom. It is the task of a lifetime. You can never know enough, never work enough, never use the infinitives and participles oddly enough, never impede the movement harshly enough, never leave the mind quickly enough.”

Quote by Anne Carson

Work

Plainwater: Essays and Poetry

This book is a compilation of essays and poetry that delve into the complexities of life, nature, memory, and the human condition. The author uses a blend of lyrical prose and verse to reflect on the interconnectedness of the natural world and human emotions. more

Author

Anne Carson
Anne Carson

Anne Carson, born on June 21, 1950, is a renowned Canadian poet. Her works are known for their unique style and profound themes, covering a range of subjects including philosophy, history, and literature. more

You May Also Like

“The people most sensitive to emotional energy are those whom the rest of us find the most difficult to understand. But, I submit, they have access to a gateway to greater understanding of our embodied existence and the universe we are born into.”

“It’s funny, with the two Yvonnes, the sex-infatuation part came after already knowing them quite well, adoring them and wanting to be with them in other ways. Whereas the sex-infatuations that’re male (you, Shake, the priest) leap out of nowhere, based on not knowing them at all. As if sex could provide the missing clues. Can it? In the cases of the males it’s like I felt some kind of hint of who that person was floating underneath the surface. Wanting sex to realize things I knew.”

“Since we nowadays think that all a man needs for acquisition of truth is to exert his brain more or less vigorously, and since we consider an ascetic approach to knowledge hardly sensible, we have lost the awareness of the close bond that links the knowing of truth to the condition of purity. Thomas says that unchastity's first-born daughter is blindness of the spirit. Only he who wants nothing for himself, who not subjectively 'interested,' can know the truth. On the other hand, an impure, selfishly corrupted will-to-pleasure destroys both resoluteness of spirit and the ability of the psyche to listen in silent attention to the language of reality.”