Sarah Kane

“I am the beast at the end of the rope.”

“I won't be able to think. I won't be able to work. Nothing will interfere with your work like suicide”

“I dread the loss of her I've never touched love keeps me a slave in a cage of tears I gnaw my tongue with which to her I can never speak I miss a woman who was never born I kiss a woman across the years that say we shall never meet Everything passes Everything perishes Everything palls my thought walks away with a killing smile leaving discordant anxiety which roars in my soul No hope No hope No hope No hope No hope No hope No hope”

“I crave white on white and black, but my thoughts race in glorious technicolour, prodding me awake, whipping away the warm blanket of invisibility every time it sears to smother my mind in nothing.”

“She's talking about herself in the third person because the idea of being who she is, of acknowledging that she is herself, is more than her pride can take.”

“Some will call this self-indulgence(They are lucky not to know its truth)Some will know the simple fact of painThis is becoming my normality”

“I dreamt I went to the doctor's and she gave me eight minutes to live-I'd been sitting in the fucking waiting room half an hour.”

“I'm here, got no choice. But you, you should be telling people.”

“At home I'm clean. Like it never happened. Tell them you saw me. Tell them...you saw me.”

“A small girl became increasingly paralysed by her parents' frequently violent rows.Sometimes she would spend hours standing completely still in the toilet, simplybecause that was where she happened to be when the fight began.Finally, in moments of calm, she would take bottles of milk from the fridge ordoorstep and leave them in places where she may later become trapped. Herparents were unable to understand why they found bottles of sour milk in everyroom in the house.”

“Body and soul can never be marriedI need to become who I already am and will bellow forever at this incongruity which has committed me to hell”

“And when I don’t feel it, it’s pointless.Think about getting up it’s pointless.Think about eating it’s pointless.Think about dressing it’s pointless.Think about speaking it’s pointless.Think about dying only it’s totallyfucking pointless.”

“the chicken's still dancingthe chicken won't stop”

“Sleep with a dog and rise full of fleas.”

“I am much fucking angrier than you think.”

“No one survives life.”

“I love you still,Against my will.”

“I've faked orgasms before, but this is the first time I've faked not having an orgasm.”

“Your hair is an act of God.”

“Death is my lover and he wants to move in.”

“We made love, and then she threw up.”

“As a child I liked to piss on the carpet.The carpet rotted and I blamed it on the dog.”

“You get mixed messages because I have mixed feelings.”

“And the rats eat my face. So what.”

“If you died it would be like my bones had been removed. No one would know why, but I would collapse.”

“Of course I loved you, you saved my life. I wish you hadn’t I wish you hadn’t I wish you’d left me alone.”

“You’ll be all right. You’re strong. I know you’ll be okay because I like you and you can’t like someone who doesn’t like themself. The people I fear for are the ones who I don’t like because they hate themselves so much they won’t let anyone else like them either. But I do like you. I’ll miss you. And I know you’ll be okay.”

“Sometimes I turn around and catch the smell of you and I cannot go on I cannot fucking go on without expressing this terrible so fucking awful physical aching fucking longing I have for you. And I cannot believe that I can feel this for you and you feel nothing. Do you feel nothing?”

“They will love me for that which destroys me.”

“He's following me... He needs to have a secret but he can´t help telling the heat is going out of me. The heart is going out of me, and though she cannot remember she cannot forget. Clutching a fistful of sand. What ties me to you is guilt. I crossed two rivers and wept by one I am the beast at the end of the rope Happy and free.”

“Have you ever thought, thought your heart would break? Wished you could cut open your chest tear it out to stop the pain? Why don´t you riot like everyone else. I don't care, life's too long. You can have any man you want. I want him...except him. Always suspected the world didn't smell of fresh paint and flowers. Smells of piss and human sweat If there could have been more moments like this.”

“I am an emotional plagiarist, stealing other people's pain, subsuming it into my own until I can't remember whose it is any more.”

“What I sometimes mistake for ecstasy is simply the absence of grief.”

“Here I am and there is my body dancing on glass In accident time where there are no accidents You have no choice the choice comes after”

“No boy is worth crying over, and the one who is won't make you cry.”

“Once you have perceived that life is very cruel, the only response is to live with as much humanity, humour and freedom as you can.”

“Have you made any plans?Take an overdose, slash my wrists then hang myself.All those things together?It couldn't possibly be misconstrued as a cry for help.”

“- I won't be able to think. I won't be able to work.- Nothing will interfere with your work like suicide.(Silence)- I dreamt that I went to the doctor's and she gave me eight minutes to live. I'd been sitting in the fucking waiting room for half an hour.(A long silence)- Okay, let's do it, let's do the drugs, let's do the chemical lobotomy, let's shut down the higher functions of my brain and perhaps I'll be a bit more fucking capable of living.Let's do it.”

“Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you for rejecting me by never being there, fuck you for making me feel like shit about myself, fuck you for bleeding the fucking love and life out of me, fuck my father for fucking up my life for good and fuck my mother for not leaving him, but most of all, fuck you God for making me love a person who does not exist.FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU.”

“And I want to play hide-and-seek and give you my clothes and tell you I like your shoes and sit on the steps while you take a bath and massage your neck and kiss your feet and hold your hand and go for a meal and not mind when you eat my food and meet you at Rudy's and talk about the day and type up your letters and carry your boxes and laugh at your paranoia and give you tapes you don't listen to and watch great films and watch terrible films and complain about the radio and take pictures of you when you're sleeping and get up to fetch you coffee and bagels and Danish and go to Florent and drink coffee at midnight and have you steal my cigarettes and never be able to find a match and tell you about the tv programme I saw the night before and take you to the eye hospital and not laugh at your jokes and want you in the morning but let you sleep for a while and kiss your back and stroke your skin and tell you how much I love your hair your eyes your lips your neck your breasts your arse yourand sit on the steps smoking till your neighbour comes home and sit on the steps smoking till you come home and worry when you're late and be amazed when you're early and give you sunflowers and go to your party and dance till I'm black and be sorry when I'm wrong and happy when you forgive me and look at your photos and wish I'd known you forever and hear your voice in my ear and feel your skin on my skin and get scared when you're angry and your eye has gone red and the other eye blue and your hair to the left and your face oriental and tell you you're gorgeous and hug you when you're anxious and hold you when you hurt and want you when I smell you and offend you when I touch you and whimper when I'm next to you and whimper when I'm not and dribble on your breast and smother you in the night and get cold when you take the blanket and hot when you don't and melt when you smile and dissolve when you laugh and not understand why you think I'm rejecting you when I'm not rejecting you and wonder how you could think I'd ever reject you and wonder who you are but accept you anyway and tell you about the tree angel enchanted forest boy who flew across the ocean because he loved you and write poems for you and wonder why you don't believe me and have a feeling so deep I can't find words for it and want to buy you a kitten I'd get jealous of because it would get more attention than me and keep you in bed when you have to go and cry like a baby when you finally do and get rid of the roaches and buy you presents you don't want and take them away again and ask you to marry me and you say no again but keep on asking because though you think I don't mean it I do always have from the first time I asked you and wander the city thinking it's empty without you and want what you want and think I'm losing myself but know I'm safe with you and tell you the worst of me and try to give you the best of me because you don't deserve any less and answer your questions when I'd rather not and tell you the truth when I really don't want to and try to be honest because I know you prefer it and think it's all over but hang on in for just ten more minutes before you throw me out of your life and forget who I am and try to get closer to you because it's beautiful learning to know you and well worth the effort and speak German to you badly and Hebrew to you worse and make love with you at three in the morning and somehow somehow somehow communicate some of the overwhelming undying overpowering unconditional all-encompassing heart-enriching mind-expanding on-going never-ending love I have for you.”

“don't say no to me you can't say no to me because it's such a relief to have love again and to lie in bed and be held and touched and kissed and adored and your heart will leap when you hear my voice and see my smile and feel my breath on your neck and your heart will race when I want to see you and I will lie to you from day one and use you and screw you and break your heart because you broke mine first and you will love me more each day until the weight is unbearable and your life is mine and you'll die alone because I will take what I want then walk away and owe you nothing it's always there it's always been there and you cannot deny the life you feel fuck that life fuck that life fuck that life I have lost you now.”

“But you have friends.You have a lot of friends.What do you offer your friends to make them so supportave.What do you offer your friends to make them so supportavewhat do you offer. "...if I could remember any more of my lines I'd add themso basically this is a preface to the whole play. I would like to quote the whole play. Currently my mind is afraid to remember the play.”

“to feed, help, protect, comfort, console, support, nurse, or healto be fed, helped, nursed, protected, comforted, consoled, supported, nursed, or healedto form mutually enjoyable, enduring, cooperating and reciprocating relationship with Other, with an equalto be forgivento be lovedto be free”

“It is myself I have never met whose face is pasted on the underside of my mind”