Quotes by Eileen Myles

“Literature is love. I think it went like this: drawings in the cave, sounds in the cave, songs in the cave, songs about us. Later, stories about us. Part of what we always did was have sex and figh...”

“We're basking in language itself. The silence of my friend. My love. The one beyond words in her silence. She is always eternally before. When she speaks it is shit, a gift, something to do. In our...”

“If passion was a substance I would say it is dark brown, and then blood red. It's like wet grass, tons of it soaked in mud. It's warm and it stinks like shit and it's unaccountably and endlessly go...”

“Sometimes in utter hopelessness I put my cheek on the table like it was someone. I wanted to wake my brain up and be loved.”

“The bag I wanted was beyond reason - something to hold my poems, twice as big as the universe and it must be androgynous.”

“What happened was private. I was in it with Rose. She had hurt me grievously and now I was forever attached. I was in it now with all the women in the world. I walked home glad. I will die, I thoug...”

“Who doesn't want to be famous? I am famous. I'm dying to be on TV.”

“When somebody's in love with you, they think it's amazing you've written them a poem, and when they don't love you anymore, they hate those poems. They wish those poems would go away.”

“If the poetry world celebrate its female stars at the true level of their productivity and influence, poetry would wind up being a largely female world, and the men would leave.”

“Sunday is a likely day to write a poem. Because poetry is a piece of language flying around: you'll find notebooks, something on your phone. It's about finding them and getting them off that crumpl...”

“Poetry always, always, always is a key piece of democracy.”

“As things get worse, poetry gets better because it becomes more necessary.”

“I wasn't afraid of being poor. I didn't want to live in a big house. I'm the perfect size for poetry. I can move around.”

“In Arlington, people would laugh at you if you tried to get people to look at your drawings or listen to your poetry. It was like you thought you were special.”

“Poetry from the bottom up is an act of selection: you kind of feel your way through the crowds of poems. The good ones came forward a long time ago, and the bad ones fell away.”

“Poetry and novels are lists of our devotions. We love the feel of making the marks as the feelings are rising and falling.”

“Sometimes in utter hopelessness I put my cheek on the table like it was someone. I wanted to wake my brain up and be loved.”

“If passion was a substance I would say it is dark brown, and then blood red. It's like wet grass, tons of it soaked in mud. It's warm and it stinks like shit and it's unaccountably and endlessly go...”

“What happened was private. I was in it with Rose. She had hurt me grievously and now I was forever attached. I was in it now with all the women in the world. I walked home glad. I will die, I thoug...”