Carolee Quotes

Did you know that seventy-five to eighty percent of juvenile offenders can't read at grade level?"
"Really?" This was news to me.
"Your world becomes a much smaller place if you can't read. You have far fewer options. It's not the only factor, but it's a big one. If they want to know how big to build a prison,
all they have to do is look at the illiteracy statistics."
"They knew I was coming."
"You or someone like you."
"You knew it too, all those years ago, back in Quincy. That's why you tried to help me. Because you knew I was coming here."
"Here or someplace like here. ~ Carolee Dean

Want me to drive?" Wade asks. "I won't take any detours."
I slam on the brakes and come to a dead stop right in the middle of the road. "Sure. Why not? My life is one big fucking detour," I yell. Then I bang my head on the steering wheel and I can't help it. I start to cry. ~ Carolee Dean

So don't ask no questions. Too much truth can be bad. ~ Carolee Dean

The road less traveled might just be the ride of your life! ~ Carolee Dean

Let me love you, girl who came from the sea. Let us swim to the bottom of the ocean where we can be anything and where no one can find us. We will grow gills and breathe salt water. We will sprout fins and scales and make our home in underground caves. Or else will drown there. But either way, i will be happy ~ Carolee Dean

Are you a virgin?" I asked, "A virgin who's gonna tear out my heart?"
"Yes ... no ... wait." She looked at me. "I'm not going to rip out your heart."
"Thanks for clearing that up," I said
"Is that okay with you?" she asked softly.
"Okay with me?","No, it's not okay at all," I replied.
"Why not?" She looked down at her toes.
"I want you to rip out my heart."
She smiled, pressed her hand to my chest, and said, "I could never do that."
You already have, I thought as I took her hand in mine ~ Carolee Dean

Where we goin'? Wade whispers to me as we approach the white picket fence that surrounds the row of wooden crosses.
For all I know my grandmother could be planning to shoot us and bury us with the rest of the family, but I don't think it would help to share this notion with Wade ~ Carolee Dean

I had a total revelation with the feminist moment, with Carolee Scheeman and Marina Abromovic and of course Joan Jonas; that was a big breakthrough with me. And through them, [I was introduced to] Chris Burden and Bruce Nauman and Vito Acconci. You can almost call it a gang, because the works are always talking together. That stuff had a huge impact on me, but other than that, my interest had always been old paintings. ~ Ragnar Kjartansson

Reading about how i live, you might assume i am some kind of psychopath, the sort of beast that must be locked away from society. But the truth is that I'm not tat different from you. Not very different at all.
And that should scare the hell out of you ~ Carolee Dean

This is what love is. Not the moments on the beach, or under the stars or the trees, or in the moonlight. Love is sitting together in the quiet, waiting for death to come.
Knowing you're not alone. ~ Carolee Dean

Every clock is a bomb, ticking away at the minutes of our lives, counting off the seconds one by one before we die.
At birth a heart it given a certain number of beats. The clock is counting them off one by one and will not allow a man any more than his allotted share. ~ Carolee Dean

It brings back a long-forgotten memory of Christmas, the year I turned six. I was supposed to be in bed, but I was up waiting and watching for my father or Santa Claus, whoever came first. ~ Carolee Dean

It was then that i understood what i had to do. i had to find a way to warn you.
They have built a house of steel, and they are waiting. ~ Carolee Dean

Words are like people, I think. Put too many of them too close together and they cause trouble. ~ Carolee Dean

I don't want to even think about what kind of creatures could be lurking out there in the dark in the middle of the sticks. Probably the same ones lurking around during the day, but I've learned that dangerous things like to wait till night to surface, when you can't see the coming. ~ Carolee Dean

I wouldn't want to be labelled unless it was something much broader and inclusive such as an ecological artist or a visionary artist, but there's a constraint in the definition of a feminist artist, you're an artist and you're a feminist. ~ Carolee Schneemann

Never, never give up what is rightfully yours. ~ Carolee Dean

Don't try to bullshit a bullshitter. ~ Carolee Dean

My head was spinning. I felt like I'd been drifting, lost at sea all my life, and now that I'd found dry land, I couldn't quite get my bearings. ~ Carolee Dean

Drawing and masturbation were the first sacred experiences I remember. ~ Carolee Schneemann

I got words in me, Jess, fighting to find a way out. Sometimes there's so many words and they get so crowded in my skull I think my head is gonna explode. I want to write them down. I've tried, but most of the time my thoughts and my feelings are bigger than what I can get on paper. ~ Carolee Dean

Figure out what truth you're hidin' that you can't admit even to yourself ~ Carolee Dean

Is she worth all that pain?" he asked me, smiling.
"Definitely," I said, still reeling from the events of the day.
"But I don't deserve her."
"Then be somebody who does."
"That's what I intend to do. ~ Carolee Dean

I have learned there is more than one way to die. ~ Carolee Dean

People look at me and say I've got it all,
But when you're standing at the top you've got
A log, long way yo fall
And tell me if i do
Can i depend on you?
Will you be the man
Who will catch me if you can?
'Cause I'm fallin' hard
I'm fallin' fast
And i gotta know
If it's gonna last.
You're the one i need
To teach me to believe ~ Carolee Dean

Who cares about my voice? There are more important things going on in the world. I want to make a difference. I'm going to law school. I want to become a public defender."
I couldn't believe she'd give up singing to work with scumbags like me. "By the time a guy ends up in front of the judge, it's too late to make a difference."
"It's never too late to make a difference," she said.
"All I'm saying is that with your music you could have an influence on people before they end up in trouble. ~ Carolee Dean

The Road
Life isn't a destination
It's a journey.
But you gotta be heading somewhere
or you're just a mouse
going round.
Even if
the place you wind up
isn't the place
you where bound ~ Carolee Dean

What happened?"
"I tried to be somebody different from who I am and it didn't work out."
"The world ain't set up that way. Folks say we oughta be better than we are, but deep down they just want us to stay in our places. With our own kind.
Messes up the natural order, otherwise. ~ Carolee Dean

Don't be afraid to say how you feel, Dylan. Holding things inside is what gets people in trouble. ~ Carolee Dean

WORDS
I carry a message
that i cannot read.
The words may be haunting
or tender or sweet.
Thought what it says
I do not know,
I still carry it with me,
wherever i go. ~ Carolee Dean

I carry a message
that i can not read.
the words may be haunting ,
or tender or sweet.
though what it says,
i don not know.
i still carry it with me ,
where ever i go. ~ Carolee Dean

But thinkin' you owe people is dangerous business. ~ Carolee Dean

I'm a painter. I'm still a painter and I will die a painter. Everything that I have developed has to do with extending visual principles off the canvas. ~ Carolee Schneemann

Dylan -
People luk at me and wok akros the street
So tired of the suspishus eyes
On all the faces that i meet
And tell me, if i try
To be a diferent guy,
Will you be the girl
To rearrange my wirld?
You take me up,
You take me down,
Take me to the sky,
Take me to the ground,
I'd go anywhere
If you would only take me there. ~ Carolee Dean

I have a class in Hermosa Beach that starts at eight, but ...
I wanted to offer to pick up her car, drive her back to Hermosa Beach, take her to the moon. ~ Carolee Dean

We sit in silence, all the unanswered and unasked questions thicker than the wall of glass between us. ~ Carolee Dean

Hey, aren't you that guy who fixes cars?" Katie asked,
looking at my grease-covered work pants as if she couldn't believe I ever left the garage.
"Yeah, they let me out every now and then," I said. ~ Carolee Dean

Those who have witnessed executions say there is no sound worse than the weeping of mother watching her son being put to death.
They're wrong. There is one sound that is worse.
There is silence. ~ Carolee Dean

Listening to Pastor Bob talk about mercy and redemption, I am filled with hope. Not the kind of expectation that comes from knowing you can pull yourself up by your own bootstraps, but the trust that comes from utter failure, from knowing you are pathetic and small and you've got no place to look but up. ~ Carolee Dean

When I get to the part about Jess kissing me on the Fourth of July and taking me to her beach house,I look at my father and wonder what it is like, seeing people only through a wall of glass. Never touching them. ~ Carolee Dean

As soon as I left one town, I was in another, each one a totally different world, as if an invisible box surrounded its edges, keeping everybody in their proper place.
The rich stayed rich. The poor stayed poor. The troublemakers stayed in trouble. ~ Carolee Dean

I won't offer you a tired admonition to avoid my path. I won't advise you to stay on the straight and narrow. I won't suggest that you make good choices. I won't even tell you to do the right thing. You can get that kind of advice from teachers and parents and TV evangelists, and if you are like me, you wouldn't listen anyway.
I just make one suggestion.
Know what path you're on. ~ Carolee Dean