Kathy Acker

"The German Romantics had to destroy the same bastions we do. Logocentrism and idealism, theology, all supports of the repressive society. Propertys pillars. Reason which always homogenizes and reduces, represses and unifies phenomena or actuality into what can be perceived and so controlled. The subjects, us, are now stable and socializable. Reason is always in the service of the political and economic masters. It is here that literature strikes, at this base, where the concepts and actings of order impose themselves. Literature is that which denounces and slashes apart the repressing machine at the level of the signified."

"Even a woman who has the soul of a pirate, at least pirate morals, even a woman who prefer loneliness to the bickerings and constraints of heterosexual marriage, even such a woman who is a freak in our society needs a home. Even freaks needs homes, countries, language, communication. The only characteristic freaks share is our knowledge that we dont fit in. Anywhere. Is it for you, freaks, my loves, I am writing and it is about you."

"You create identity, youre not given identity per se. What became more interesting to me wasnt the I, it was text because its texts that create the identity. Thats how I got interested in plagiarism."

"At a certain point I realized that the "I" doesnt exist. So I said to myself: If the "I" doesnt exist, I have to construct one, or maybe even more than one."

"My nutritionist read my pathology report and said, "Theres only one way you can beat your cancer." "Whats that?" "You have to find out what caused it."

"Every book, remember, is dead until a reader activates it by reading. Every time that you read you are walking among the dead, and, if you are listening, you just might hear prophecies. Aeneas did. Odysseus did. Listen to Delany, a prophet."

"I had been confused why I had gotten cancer. Three weeks later, I saw the network of causation so clearly I wondered why I wasnt more disease-riddled. My healer reminded me that if health is based on forgiveness, then I had to forgive ..."

"We come crawling through these cracks, orphans, lobotomies; if you ask me what I want, Ill tell you. I want everything. Whole rotten world come down and break. Let me spread my legs."

"We dont have a clue what it is to be male or female, or if there are intermediate genders. Male and female might be fields which overlap into androgyny or different kinds of sexual desires. But because we live in a Western, patriarchal world, we have very little chance of exploring these gender possibilities."

"Women need to become literary "criminals", break the literary laws and reinvent their own, because the established laws prevent women from presenting the reality of their lives."

"A friend told me that there are these clean and sober dykes that have piercings every couple months just to get high. Its about learning about my body. I didnt know my body could do this. Its not exactly pleasure. Its more like vision. I didnt know the body is such a visionary factory. Basically we grew up not wanting to know that we had bodies. And its not as if these piercings are in that deep — its just on the surface. So if that little thing can do so much, who knows what else we can experience?"

"In the total devastation of the heart which is the world, the lands-lords rule. There is no way we can defeat the landslords. But under their reins and their watchful eyes. I sail as the winds of lusts and emotions bare me. Everywhere and anywhere. I who will never own, whatever and whenever I want, I take."