Quotes by Kathy Acker

• I understand that postmodern literature probably means people like DeLillo, The Fiction Collective, but I don't get it that those writers are really influenced by postmodern theorists.
• Traveling around I don't think people are that horrible, I think they just don't know.
• I write it to get it out of me. I don't write it to remember it.
• I'm very staid compared to my students, actually.
• On the surface we all act like we all love each other and we're free and easy, and actually we're far more moralistic than any other society I've ever lived in.
• One of the reasons I think the ultra right-wing has such power in this country is that no one talks out.
• Some of the stuff about Yogi energy is really fascinating.
• That's what the right-wing is good at: figuring out the left wing.
• I think what we have in this country is a little more dangerous in a way because it can't be seen fully. It's sorta internal censorship. We censor each other.
• There's a backlash against womyn that's really bad right now.
• I understand that when people read my books that there's something there - but I don't identify with it.
• We get on the bandwagon in all sorts of ways - you know minor ways and major ways - like what you've just encountered which isn't censorship exactly, it was something sort of uglier in a way.
• We've been very bad at understanding why the right-wing does things.
• Well, fear and homophobia are both pervasive.
• Well, I think writing is basically about time and rhythm. Like with jazz. You have your basic melody and then you just riff off of it. And the riffs are about timing.
• Yeah, I mean, I put work out there for people to use and I'm grateful when you use it.
• You know I've had work banned.
• The literary culture, if you examine it, the high literary culture is that which preserves the government and you know it's really the talk for those who have.
• But I still don't have a clear idea of what my voice is.
• I wasn't really into body piercings until I found that about half my female students had them.
• And I'm working at trying to find a kind of language where I won't be so easily modulated by expectation.
• I'm really fascinated and you know I've been wondering about that usage of language, various breathing techniques and why in these practices language is being used in another way.
• But guys such as Allen and William are more supportive than most men.
• I think the best thing in cases of censorship or things like this is to get as much media as possible.
• First of all, writing at best - certainly fiction writing - more and more I think is magic.
• I found my voice was a reaction to all that voice stuff.
• I mean, once work's out there it's meant to be used.
• I mean, they censor your work when they're scared of it.
• I might be writing what people expect me to write, writing from that place where I might be ruled by economic considerations. To overcome that, I started working with my dreams, because I'm not so censored when I use dream material.
• I question: do we really understand the differences between modernist and postmodernist?
• And internalization is used in this country as a very effective political tool.