Angela Carter

“Reading a book is like re-writing it for yourself.”

“We must all make myths.”

“A book is a machine to think with.”

“Cities have sexes: London is a man, Paris a woman, and New York a well-adjusted transsexual.”

“To be the object of desire is to be defined in the passive case. To exist in the passive case is to die in the passive case.”

“The tiger will never lie down with the lamb; he acknowledges no pact that is not reciprocal. The lamb must learn to run with the tigers.”

“Language is power, life and the instrument of culture, the instrument of domination and liberation.”

“Comedy is tragedy that happens to other people.”

“I am all for putting new wine in old bottles, especially if the pressure of the new wine makes the old bottles explode.”

“She herself is a haunted house.”

“Is not this world an illusion? And yet it fools everybody.”

“A free man is a man who is not afraid of a woman.”

“Nostalgia, the vice of the aged. We watch so many old movies our memories come in monochrome.”

“Hope for the best, but expect the worst.”

“What is marriage but a hazardous voyage? It is a contract of eternal intimacy, agreed upon by two vulnerable parties.”

“For a woman to be taken seriously, she must cry.”

“You never know what you can do till you try.”