Angela Carter quotes

" Women's sexy underwear is a minor but significant growth industry of late-twentieth-century Britain in the twilight of capitalism. " # Dress # Capitalism # Minorities

" The notion of a universality of human experience is a confidence trick and the notion of a universality of female experience is a clever confidence trick. " # Experience # Confidence # Gender

" Just because we're sisters under the skin doesn't mean we've got much in common. " # Feminism # Family # Common Sense

" Mother goddesses are just as silly a notion as father gods. If a revival of the myths of these cults gives woman emotional satisfaction, it does so at the price of obscuring the real conditions of life. This is why they were invented in the first place. " # God # Freedom # Power

" There's a theory, one I find persuasive, that the quest for knowledge is, at bottom, the search for the answer to the question: Where was I before I was born. In the beginning was what? Perhaps, in the beginning, there was a curious room, a room like this one, crammed with wonders; and now the room and all it contains are forbidden you, although it was made just for you, had been prepared for you since time began, and you will spend all your life trying to remember it. " # Knowledge # Persuasion # Questions

" Fine art, that exists for itself alone, is art in a final state of impotence. If nobody, including the artist, acknowledges art as a means of knowing the world, then art is relegated to a kind of rumpus room of the mind and the irresponsibility of the artist and the irrelevance of art to actual living becomes part and parcel of the practice of art. " # Arts and Artists # Politics # Mind

" I think the adjective post-modernist really means mannerist. Books about books is fun but frivolous. " # Modern and Modernism # Books - Reading # Love

" It is far easier for a woman to lead a blameless life than it is for a man; all she has to do is to avoid sexual intercourse like the plague. " # Morality # Sex # Women

" There are lots of things that you can brush under the carpet about yourself until you're faced with somebody whose needs won't be put off. " # Mothers # Habit # Love

" The kind of power mothers have is enormous. Take the skyline of Istanbul -- enormous breasts, pathetic little willies, a final revenge on Islam. I was so scared I had to crouch in the bottom of the boat when I saw it. " # Mothers # Revenge # Love