Kathy Acker Quotes

I've always written plays for the purpose of getting something out of my system.

You write it down because finally, when it's written down you do get it out of your system somewhat.

I tend to write it and then let go emotionally.

Writing helps me process things that are happening to me.

One sheds one's sicknesses in books - repeats and presents again one's emotions, to be master of them.

Writing has become such an outlet for me that when I don't have it, I just get pent up.

The act of writing can be a form of release - a confession performs the same action: putting your inner life on the page or into the hands of a trusted person releases tensions and sheds light on what often seems hidden until spoken - or written.

I try not to take on the weight or the burden of it. Once it's on the paper, I try to leave it, because I want to surrender to what I'm supposed to write about.

Letters are largely written to get things out of your system.

There's no better way to process pain than to write.

I feel I'm able to get rid of any demons lurking in my psyche through my writing, which leaves me free to create all of this and to enjoy our family life, stepping away from all the fictional traumas and the dramas. If I write about family in crisis, then I won't have to live through it, I guess.

Writing is a way of processing our lives. And it can be a way of healing.

I think writing really helps you heal yourself. I think if you write long enough, you will be a healthy person. That is, if you write what you need to write, as opposed to what will make money, or what will make fame.

I was going mad. One day, I just started writing, and it was like therapy because I was in a position where I couldn't rage. I never expected to be a writer; it's a different world than I ever expected to be in.

I have a mess in my head sometimes, and there's something very satisfying about putting it into words. Certainly it's not something that you're in charge of, necessarily, but writing about it, putting it into your words, can be a very powerful experience.

If I don't write to empty my mind, I go mad.

I write first for myself as a therapeutic process, to get stuff out and to deal with it.

I find it very satisfying to write because you can purge many things and vent what you feel under the mask of fiction.

If I wanted to curse you out, I would write everything I wanted to say to you in my diary, and it was like screaming in my head. After that, I would have no feelings for you; I wouldn't be mad at you or upset because I already said it to you when I wrote it down. That's what writing did for me.

Writing was always a release for me, a great joy. It wasn't work.

Sometimes I worry I've said too much. But it's easier to write about things that are fresh in your mind.

I wasn't trying to write a book; it wasn't even in my vision. I was posting stuff online just because it made me feel relieved - as a way of getting things off my chest.

My only way of processing anything for me is by writing.

I write and that way rid myself of me and then at last I can rest.

I do these records. All of these ideas that I have, that I put out there, that inspire me to write, are a purging in a lot of ways. I have to expel them in order for myself to walk around and actually smile and be a regular, or a living, person.