Cities have sexes: London is a man, Paris a woman, and New York a well-adjusted transsexual.
Angela CarterRead
She stands and moves within the invisible pentacle of her own virginity. She is an unbroken egg: she is a sealed vessel; she has inside her a magic space the entrance to which is shut tight with a plug of membrane; she is a closed system; she does not know how to shiver.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote explores the idea of feminine purity and potential, depicting a woman as a sealed vessel full of untapped magic and power.
Angela Carter's quote poetically illustrates the complexity of a woman's identity and the concept of virginity as both a physical and symbolic state. The imagery of an 'unbroken egg' and a 'sealed vessel' signifies the purity, potential, and magic inherent in a woman who has yet to be touched by the world, emphasizing the richness and depth she possesses beneath the surface.
Themes
VirginityFemininePotentialPurityIdentity
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be used in a discussion about women's empowerment during a seminar.
More from Angela Carter
All quotes →Those are the voices of my brothers, darling; I love the company of wolves.
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For most of human history, 'literature,' both fiction and poetry, has been narrated, not written — heard, not read. So fairy tales, folk tales, stories from the oral tradition, are all of them the most vital connection we have with the imaginations of the ordinary men and women whose labor created our world.
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Iconic clothing has been secularized. . . . A guardsman in a dress uniform is ostensibly an icon of aggression; his coat is red as the blood he hopes to shed. Seen on a coat-hanger, with no man inside it, the uniform loses all its blustering significance and, to the innocent eye seduced by decorative colour and tactile braid, it is as abstract in symbolic information as a parasol to an Eskimo. It becomes simply magnificent.
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To pin your hopes upon the future is to consign those hopes to a hypothesis, which is to say, a nothingness. Here and now is what we must contend with.
Angela CarterRead
I haven't changed much, over the years. I use less adjectives, now, and have a kinder heart, perhaps.
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