Alice Notley Quotes

And maybe you can't know me now.
Maybe I'm just blood. Whatever that's for. ~ Alice Notley

Stalker


The light so thick nothing's visible, cognoscenti

I knew them, stupid apes. Real apes know more

Before we said apes. I know how to be you bet-

ter  -  a stupid voice. You must find a mind

to respect  -  why? There was someone with ear

buds, speaking gibberish who wouldn't

stop walking beside me; freckle-spattered. I

had to ask the métro attendant for help;

she extricated him from me ... I respect his chaotic

speech, mild adhesive force because it makes no sense.

I am back on the alley, discovering adults are un-

trustworthy: someone's lying ... about a

fight between a teenage girl and boy  -  he pushed

her hard  -  first she badly scratched him, she's worse, his

mother says. I'm back at pre-beginning, I don't

want to go through that again. There is no

sexuality in chaos, there's no style, nor

hope. I want style  -  apes have style, people

have machines. Show me something to respect

This bleuet growing out of a wall on rue d'Hauteville.

I picked it and pressed it in a diary. Every once

in a while I respect a moment. I am back at

pre-beginning: I don't want to care beyond

this ... sudden hue in the sand, yellow or spotted with an

hallucinated iridescence. The one who is

stalking me ~ Alice Notley

Gift

Nothing will hurt you that much despite how you feel

the stress on your back shapes your insight

this splendid November rain Toussaint. I find

you by your marks, he says

an imprint

But when I summon you, I talk to - I say -

my memory of your face. It's kind of crazy

to others. They're not very interesting he says.

When I first came to this country, and now

I know the language I say, but I had in a dream

spoken it many years previously. That is,

not the language of the dead the language

of France. I took one year of French in 1964

and then nothing but once, in 1977 I spoke French

in a dream all night: I was in the future I

moved here in 1992. Country of the more

logical than I? though the people of my quartier

know and like me, even as I a foreigner remain strange

You do everything alone a woman said to me.

There are ways to care without interfering

but the French speak of anguish frequently

they are conscious of emotional extremity

a terrible gift. It's all a gift, he says . . .

some haven't been opened. I'm not sure

he said that it's nearly my sixty-seventh birthday

today though it's the day of the dead hello

we love you they say. ~ Alice Notley

Writing poetry is what I am. I wouldn't know what else to be. ~ Alice Notley

I can't translate myself into language any more. ~ Alice Notley

oh each poet's a beautiful human girl who must die. ~ Alice Notley

I do utterly despise dailiness as it stands. I can't abide what the world has become, the frozen-ness of our product this evil thing that we kiss the ass of every hour. I want a dailiness that is free and beautiful ~ Alice Notley

Feeling awful is physiological you say.
God I hate you, I say. Yes you can find the neurons for feeling awful. Do you think you can find the neurons for the fact I hate you? ~ Alice Notley

Abolish these categories of pain
(or is it love)
Let it all be one pain
Pain swallows itself, dies like a star. ~ Alice Notley

I want this noise within me to die down. ~ Alice Notley

Who defined me? My culture, a culture of mercy, a living codex. I am a unique culture of one, from everywhere. I am her map and her self. I am everyone in the story; I am the story. ~ Alice Notley

You're dancing on me
said the cosmic dragon, the galactic surface of all we can see.
So fucking what? she said. ~ Alice Notley

I'm not an expert in the deck at all. My interest lies somewhere near a sense that words are like tarot cards, and that a poem manipulates unpredictable depths with its words ... I like the tarot because it works like poetry and because you don't really have to 'believe in' anything. It's there to be used. The symbols are remarkably durable and beautiful; they float out to encompass all kinds of meanings. ~ Alice Notley

It's all like me; and any song for this would just be bullshit. This is a thing, where they stopped trying, they deserted it, and desertion itself is the only possible song. ~ Alice Notley

I didn't care much what happened to me, so chance didn't matter. ~ Alice Notley

you see all night in your dreams. And the blue of my voice can't help but see you. ~ Alice Notley

And if you're referring to your anguish, it's just a thing. The shape of a trailor, a wheel, or a knife. Leave the details of your life and find another one. ~ Alice Notley

I knew you were in charge of me but my mind broke on its own. ~ Alice Notley

In love there is no because. ~ Alice Notley

What did you do in your songs?
I don't know, I'll never know, you say. Someone else will write them about me, won't they?
I looked into a void of love. And I fell down. There was nothing else there. No where, where I was no one.
But I have to sing this song. I'm still here. ~ Alice Notley

Because we rejected a certain kind of critical language people just assumed that we were dumb ~ Alice Notley

... our production of the world, our interpretation of it, what we've been told to experience and what we've been told we have to do, both worry and distress me. I don't want to live in someone else's dream. ~ Alice Notley

We name us and then we are lost, tamed
I choose words, more words, to cure the tameness, not the wildness ~ Alice Notley

When Alice was younger, her father had fashioned a rough mask from evergreen needles and lake grass glued to a rotten shell of pine bark, shed like a skin. He secured it to the end of their canoe with heavy yellow cord, telling Alice their ancient Dutch relatives believed water fairies lived in the figureheads of ships, protecting the vessels and their sailors from all manner of ills- storms, narrow and treacherous passageways, fevers, and bad luck. Kaboutermannekes he called them. If the ship ran aground, or even worse, if it sank, the Kaboutermannekes would guide the seafarers' souls to the Land of the Dead. Without a water fairy to guide him, a sailor's soul would be lost at sea forever. ~ Tracy Guzeman

Sexuality is one of the ways that we become enlightened, actually, because it leads us to self-knowledge. ~ Alice Walker

If you took all the trouble most girls got into as teenagers and boiled it down for twenty-four hours, you'd wind up with something the size of a Snickers candy bar. But if you melted down all the trouble Gillian Owens got herself into, not to mention all the grief she caused, you'd have yourself a sticky mess as tall as the statehouse of Boston. ~ Alice Hoffman

I love the natural world - it comes from my culture, which grew out of a people enslaved. ~ Alice Walker

He just stared at her, feeling his very soul swell with love as she padded toward him, barefooted. He loved her eyes; he loved her smile; he loved her pale, slender arms. He loved her dainty ankles, skimmed by the hem of her chemise. He loved her gliding walk and the way her long, thick hair swung around her waist as she hurried toward him. God help him, he was her slave. ~ Gaelen Foley

I eat meat. I don't go to the gym. ~ Alice Englert

Prevention vs. Promotion Focus

Anxiety is often associated with having a prevention focus. This means being focused on preventing bad things from happening. In contrast, promotion focus means being focused on reaching for new opportunities and rewards. While most people have a dominant focus, it's possible to be high in both types, meaning you're naturally very concerned both with avoiding mistakes and harm and with reaching for opportunities. This can result in a constant sense of pushing forward and pulling back. ~ Alice Boyes

I always quit at three when my kids come home from school so I feel pretty spoiled. ~ Alice Hoffman

We'll, you know how nigger is. Can't nobody tell 'em nothing even today. Can't be rule. Every nigger you see got a kingdom in his head. ~ Alice Walker

Aiden is such a beautiful dream, I'd rather invent a million excuses for his absence that accept he never felt the same about me - Amber ~ Lucy Alice

We still can't see you!" groaned Alice.
"How do we fix that?" asked Melanie.
"I don't know...think visible thoughts," said Colleen.
"Think visible thoughts?" yelled Melanie.
"Actually, that might work. Do it Izzy, ~ Katie Mattie

Every time I conjure up a rock, I throw it. ~ Alice Walker

The things most worth wanting are not available everywhere all the time. ~ Alice Waters

Wherever I have knocked, a door has opened. Wherever I have wandered, a path has appeared. ~ Alice Walker

Perhaps what people said was true, that any man who lived long enough would eventually realize that the way in which he was cursed was also the blessing he received. ~ Alice Hoffman

Certain things need not be said, and there's nothing, not a whisper, prayer, not a sacrifice, not a payment of any price, that would change what's about to happen. ~ Alice Hoffman

She always spoke about "the people away" and how important it was to remember them and to keep in contact. She knew from listening to some of them when they came on summer holidays that at Christmas their thoughts turned to home and they loved to be remembered at that time. For others the cards was even more important; it provided the only link they had because they never made it home. I visualized my mother's Christmas cards as so many messengers winging their way to scattered family members all over the world from the nest from which they or their parents had all flown. She was the warm glow at the heart of our Christmas, but that warmth stretched much further than our house. ~ Alice Taylor

That was the moment when Alice knew for sure that she and Charlie Erdling would be friends for the rest of their lives. ~ Sarah Weeks

I know about the bad, but I look at the good thing. ~ Alice Herz-Sommer

Tender, too, is the silence of human feet. You have but to pass a season amongst the barefooted to find that man, who, shod, makes so much ado, is naturally as silent as snow. ~ Alice Meynell

The achievement of freedom is hardly possible without the felt mourning. This ability to mourn, i.e, to give up the illusion of a happy childhood, can restore vitality and creativity if a person is able to experience that he was never loved as a child for what he was, but for his achievements, success and good qualities. And that he sacrificed his childhood for this love, this will shake him very deeply. ~ Alice Miller

I don't care what you all think you want on paper. In reality, you're doing it all wrong. ~ Alice Clayton

What is behind you is gone, what is in front of you awaits. ~ Alice Hoffman

The silver trout were so numerous that if every one had turned into a star, the river would have been shining with light; a man out on a skiff would then be able to find his way past Hamilton, all the way into Boston, guided by a shimmering band of water. ~ Alice Hoffman

An absolutely delightful book about books, The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry will draw you in with its wonderfully written characters and emotional resonance . . . A delight in every sense of the word . . . The little bookstore on Alice Island might just begin to feel like a second home, a cozy place to return to again and again when you need an escape from the world. ~ Gabrielle Zevin

It was too exactly as imagined to be true. But I felt as gladly and expectantly disorientated, as happily and alertly alone, as Alice in Wonderland. ~ John Fowles

With celebrity being our new religion, it's increasingly difficult to start up on your own. Talented young designers are more likely to either go and work for celebrity brands or huge fashion houses than ever before. ~ Alice Temperley

I'm mad about the waste that happens when people who love each other can't even bring themselves to talk. ~ Alice Walker

Seeing you lights up my day, to hear your voice makes me smile all cheesy, to see you smile makes my heart all warm and fuzzy, when you say I love you makes my body weak. ~ Alice Gardner

He knew even at an early age of seven, how dangerous it was for someone like him to have hope. He knows how to have no expectations. He can completely control not just what he wants, but what he needs ~ Alice Hoffman

Mad Hatter: "Why is a raven like a writing-desk?"
"Have you guessed the riddle yet?" the Hatter said, turning to Alice again.
"No, I give it up," Alice replied: "What's the answer?"
"I haven't the slightest idea," said the Hatter ~ Lewis Carroll

No man in the New City could love her as Hatcher did - of that Alice was certain. It was deep and all-consuming but somehow never suffocating. It was unselfish. It did not ask for anything and yet he made no secret of his need. There was no one in the world like Hatcher, and if she hadn't been mad, there would be no Hatcher for her. ~ Christina Henry

When one is altering the face of the universe one cannot remember small helpful acts. ~ Alice Foote MacDougall

The word is dissociate. There is no 'a' before the 'ss'. People invariably say dis-a-ssociate, which, if you're suffering Disso-ciative Identity Disorder/Multiple Personality Disorder, can be irritating. People then want to know how many personalities I have and the answer is: I don't know. The first book about Multiple Personality Disorder to make an impact was Flora Rheta Schreiber's Sybil, published in 1973, which carries the subtitle: The True and Extraordinary Story of a Woman Possessed by Sixteen Separate Personalities. Corbett H. Thigpen and Hervey M. Cleckley published the controversial The Three Faces of Eve much earlier in 1957, and Pete Townshend from The Who wrote the song 'Four Faces'. People seem to feel safe with numbers.
The truth is more complicated. The kids emerged over time. Billy, the boisterous five-year-old, was at first the most dominant. But he slowly stood aside for JJ, the self-confident ten-year-old who appears when Alice is under stress and handles complicated situations like travelling on the Underground and meeting new people. The first entity to visit was the external voice of the Professor. But he had a choir of accomplices without names. So, how many actual alter personalities are there? I would say more than fifteen and less than thirty, a combination of protectors, persecutors and friends - my own family tree. ~ Alice Jamieson

A writer's heart, a poet's heart, an artist's heart, a musician's heart is always breaking. It is through that broken window that we see the world ... ~ Alice Walker

Stepto was quite convinced (and convincing) that the frame story in which Janie speaks to Pheoby creates only the illusion that Janie has found her voice, that Hurston's insistence on telling Janie's story in the third person undercuts her power as speaker. While the rest of us in the room struggled to find our voices, Alice Walker rose and claimed hers, insisting passionately that women did not have to speak when men thought they should, that they would choose when and where they wish to speak because while many women had found their own voices, they also knew when it was better not to use it. ~ Zora Neale Hurston

The federal budget deficit is the biggest single impediment to revitalizing the American economy. ~ Alice Rivlin

They're like a favourite novel- after you've read it once you know the story, but you still need to know it's nearby just in case you need to read it again. ~ Alice Broadway

It was always something what we did or said, and there would be this flash, and then it didn't subside. all your past sins would be brought up, it was just endless. and my mother attributed it sometimes to having neuralgia, but she never showed that outwardly ~ Alice Schroeder

The truth frightens people because it isn't stable. It shifts every day. ~ Alice Hoffman

But which way do I go from here?" she wondered, searching the unfamiliar city.

"That depends a great deal on where you want to go, ~ J.M. Sullivan

To transform experience and thought into language and narrative - that is beautiful even if that beauty is in brokenness. ~ Alice Sebold

A thank-you card," repeated Alice. "Yes. I know, I know, it's teaching them good manners and everything, but I sort of hate those thank-you cards. I always imagine the kids groaning and having to be forced into writing them. It makes me feel like an elderly aunt. ~ Liane Moriarty

He began to read out loud. He did not read in the same clear way he recited his poems, but softly, sitting hunched over the table, the words breaking here and there under the burden of his new, thickening voice. "'Are not two sparrows sold for a small coin?'" he read. "'Yet not one of them falls to the ground without your Father's knowledge. Even all the hairs of your head are counted. So do not be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows. ~ Alice McDermott