Maggie Nelson quotes:

Art to me is not precious enough that I feel territorial about what the word gets applied to. Conversations about what counts as art and what doesn't doesn't captivate my attention very much.

Evolution strikes me as infinitely more spiritually profound than Genesis.

I beheld and still behold in anger and agony the eagerness of the world to throw piles of shit on those of us who want to savage or simply cannot help but savage the norms that so desperately need savaging.

But is there really such a thing as nothing, as nothingness? I don't now. I know we're still here, who knows for how long, ablaze with our care, its ongoing song.

For to wish to forget how much you loved someone-- and then, to actually forget-- can feel, at times, like the slaughter of a beautiful bird who chose, by nothing short of grace, to make a habitat of your heart.

I don't ever believe in violence as a kind of medicine.

I don't think there's any formula for what makes great art.

I have been trying, for some time now, to find dignity in my loneliness. I have been finding this hard to do. It is easier, of course, to find dignity in one's solitude. Loneliness is solitude with a problem.

In life and art, there are distinctions to be made between what an act of cruelty consists of.

It is easier, of course, to find dignity in one's solitude. Loneliness is solitude with a problem. Can blue solve the problem, or can it at least keep me company within it?-No, not exactly. It cannot love me that way; it has no arms. But sometimes I do feel its presence to be a sort of wink-Here you are again, it says, and so am I.