Helene Cixous Quotes

“The future must no longer be determined by the past. I do not deny that
the effects of the past are still with us. But I refuse to strengthen them
by repeating them, to confer upon them an irremovability the equivalent
of destiny, to confuse the biological and the cultural. Anticipation
is imperative.”
― Hélène Cixous, The Laugh of the Medusa

“I write woman: woman must write woman. And man, man. So only an
oblique consideration will be found here of man; it’s up to him to say
where his masculinity and femininity are at: this will concern us once
men have opened their eyes and seen themselves clearly.”
― Hélène Cixous, The Laugh of the Medusa

“My voice repels death; my death; your death; my voice is my other. I write and you are not dead. The other is safe if I write.”
― Hélène Cixous

“One must have travelled a great deal to discover the obvious. One must have thoroughly rubbed and exhausted one's own eyes to get rid of the thousands of scales we start with...There are poets who have strived to do this...in quest of what I call the second innocence, the one that comes after knowing, the one that no longer knows, the one that knows how not to know.”
― Hélène Cixous