Quotes from Alice Notley

Stop, just stop. Nothing suffices but timelessness. You terrify me, you say. I am the being beyond terror, beyond extinction; details flow off me.

you need to know that our interpreta- tion of the past can't be right.

I want to touch a phantom, it's the grey dove of truth

Women are not allowed truth, not allowed speaking roles, not allowed to be precise.

I have no interest in being myself, I just am.

Is there always a further horror?

I am so fragile I can't speak.

Can you hear me, all of you?

Fate, I say, has claws.

There has to be enough for us, so give it to me

I'm so sticky with Fate that I can hardly move for fear of it. Maybe the point is that you can always see or feel it coming. The beginning and the unraveling at the same time, you see. You need to get slightly ahead.

How much anguish can you tolerate?

For days and nights I didn't know if I wanted to live

When my death comes I'll have nearly been the one.

can I be good and also save you?

I say I don't know how to make them accept me.

I want to sing in a voice you don't own, that you've never heard and judged.

I want to be lawless; I want to be alone.

Your definitions of living kill you into a frenetic boredom

I want to be locked in this situation where he threatens me then tells me je t'aime.

One might sense gods everywhere, even within one's own self. What if I am I but penetrated by divinities?

Without any deity but us without any need but to know Each other's minds again after our presumed deaths reunited

If you kill me in war, you kill a unique person with memories that light up inside me in fiery messages from my past, my electric past.

I don't have a casual life, but exist to be possessed by misery, grace, or laughter.