Quotes from Anna Kavan

Don't you like the sea any more?' she asked. [...] 'No,' said the man. 'I don't think so. I think I hate it.' But then, feeling the hollow, vague coldness inside the glass, and going away from the sea, there was nothing at all left and nothing mattered at all. 'I don't feel anything about it,' he said. 'I don't feel anything about anything.

Then he looked over the sea and there were islands it seemed, and then a great migration of birds thickened the air and he was in a rushing of wings, the wings beat so dark and fast round him he felt dizzy like falling and the moon disappeared. And then it was clear again, brilliant moonlight, and there, ahead, bright as day, were all the small islands, Cape Promise, and the bay of Mairangi, wide, still, unbelievably peaceful under the full moon. And then he did know where he was going.

I had a friend, a lover. Or did I dream it? 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.

You don't like it here? Why didn't you keep out, then, for God's sake, while you had the chance? Anyhow, it's no good moaning and snivelling now. Put a good face on it. Be tough. Show the crowd you can take it. You're an individualist, aren't you? To hell with the crowd. What do you care about them? You're here because you've got no time for the crowd. What do you care about them and their damnfool heaven? To hell with heaven, anyway.

When everything's said and done, unfortunately, we find ourselves in the position of children whose parents have gone to the theatre, leaving them alone in the dark house. Yes, we are forced, if we are honest, to make the saddest of all admissions when it comes to the last resort: Alas, we do not understand these things.

He sees her looking at him with interest, and is encouraged to go on. 'I wouldn't be here with you now. This wouldn't be real - something else would. You'd have been another you, instead of the one you are now. You can't be tied down to a predestined fate when you change according to your situation, and your fate must change too. Everything depends on circumstances - on which "you" you happen to be at a given time...

It was the summer, and Clare Bryant was happy. In the midst of the world which seemed so vast and dangerous to her, so full of change and precariousness, she had found one enduring rock to which her thin arms could cling.

I was about to become the world's best-kept secret; one that would never be told. What a thrilling enigma for posterity I should be!

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.

They are honourable and precious to me, these books, in proportion to their great heroism. They are like members of a suicide squad who do not hesitate to engage the enormously superior enemy, life, upon my behalf.

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

The thing which does surprise me is my own optimism. Surely I ought to recognize now that my number is up. Where do I always find enough courage for one more last hope? I am the enemy of this indestructible, pitiless hope which prolongs and intensifies all my pain. I would like to lay hold of hope and strangle it once and for all.

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.

It is not easy to describe my mother. Remote and starry, her sad stranger's grace did not concern the landscape of the day. Should I say that she was beautiful or that she did not love me? Have shadows beauty? Does the night love her child?

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.

transparent as the shadows of icicles, incorporated in the night-plasma.

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.

You mustn't be so afraid of life - it's all we've got. Don't let it hurt you so much.