Quotes from Ali Smith

It was kindly meant. But kindly meant was complicated. There were lines you had to draw. There were correct responses. On the one hand there was laugh and say something funny back, on the other there was how dare you talk to me like that. It depended.

Språk är som vallmoblommor. Allt som krävs är något som rör om i jorden och när något väl gör det, upp kommer orden, klarröda, friska, fladdrande i vinden. Sedan frökapslar som rasslar, ut faller frön. Så finns det ännu mer språk som bara väntar på att gro.

Regrets when you're dead? A past when you're dead? Is there never any escaping the junkshop of the self?

On the contrary, time and space are what lace us all up together, Hannah says. What makes us part of the larger picture. Universally speaking. The problem is, we tend to think we're separate. But it's a delusion.

I could lick it off with my tongue, if I had a tongue again, if my tongue was wet, and I could taste it for what it is. Beautiful dirt, grey and vintage, the grime left by life, sticking to the bony roof of a mouth and tasting of next to nothing, which is always better than nothing.

Oh, m'encanta Kafka, diu la mare. Un llibre hauria de ser una destral per trencar el mar de gel de dins nostre. Penso que és una de les coses més boniques que s'han escrit mai.

De vegades soc invisible, diu la nena. En determinades botigues, restaurants, cues per comprar bitllets o supermercats, o fins i tot en llocs on de fet parlo molt fort, demano informació en una estació o coses així. La gent pot veure a través meu. Alguns blancs, en concret, poden veure a través dels joves i també dels negres o mestissos com si no hi fóssim.

he always went straight to the machines and in a strange way it was released to because having to talk with someone, even the smallest, most casual talks, was sometimes quite hard because you always felt they judged you or you always felt shy or that you were saying a stupid or wrong thing. The pitfalls of human exchange, Sophia said.

Ell somriu. Es una noia amable, encantadora i intel·ligent, tot i que ja no és tan espavilada com quan era petita. Això, de vegades, l'entristeix. Fa una mena de feina que se li menja l'esperit. Està molt sola. Això segur. És com observar com es va erosionant.

Els ocells visiten els arbres sense fulles, però no sense fulles com a l'hivern; ara les branques s'enrigideixen, les puntes dels branquillons resplendeixen com la flama d'una espelma.

Is it possible, he said, to be in love not with someone but with their eyes. I mean, with how eyes that aren't yours let you see where you are, who you are…We have to hope that the people who love us and who know us a little bit will in the end have seen us truly. In the end, not much else matters…It is the only responsibility memory has. But, of course, memory and responsibility are strangers. They're foreign to each other. Memory always goes its own way quote regardless.

Els punts i final ens agraden: les simetries, trobar sentit al que no en té -¿és potser aquesta, la gran tasca de la literatura: explicar-nos el món per fer-nos creure que té sentit?

Ara mateix hi ha criatures que baixen a les mines, diu ella, en aquest instant, a les 13:04 que són ara. Saps que és així. Treuen cobalt de les mines per als cotxes elèctrics que són tan respectuosos amb el medi ambient.

She was so adolescent. Everything about her asked for attention, the way she walked across a room or a shop or across the forecourt of a petrol station, leaning into the air in front of her as if about to lose her balance, mutely demanding that someone – Eve, who else? – put out the flat of her hand and let Astrid push her forehead or her shoulder into it.

It is like democracy is a bottle someone can threaten to smash and do a bit of damage with. It has become a time of people saying stuff to each other and none of it actually ever becoming dialogue

THERE was once a man who, one night between the main course and the sweet at a dinner party, went upstairs and locked himself in one of the bedrooms of the house the people who were giving the dinner party.

The trees are revealing their structures. There's the catch of fire in the air. All the souls are out marauding. But there are roses, there are still roses. In the damp and the cold, on a bush that looks done, there's a wide-open rose, still. Look at the colour of it.

My being ineligible makes you all the more eligible. No worries. Happy to help. Also you'll notice this face resembles the drawings on the posters that tell you to report anything you think looks suspicious. Tell the police if you see anyone who looks like me, because my face is of urgent matter to your nation. Not at all. No problem. Glad to be of service.

I'm tired of the news. I'm tired of the way it makes things spectacular that aren't, and deals so simplistically with what's truly appalling.

We have to hope that the people who love us and who know us a little bit will in the end have seen us truly. In the end, not much else matters. It is the only responsibility memory has. But, of course, memory and responsibility are strangers. They're foreign to each other. Memory always goes its own way quite regardless.

Change is the nature of luck.

More and more, the pressing human dilemma: how to walk a clean path between obscenities. Bernice

Simt cum ceva creÈ™te în mine, la fel de mare ca È™i b?rb??ia lui. Este mânie.

De fapt, chiar ne comportam ca niÈ™te domniÈ™oare. Aruncam pietrele înf??urate în s?culeÈ›i de pânz? pe care îi confecÈ›ionasem special cu mâinile noastre pentru a pune pietrele în ei. AÈ™a eram de domniÈ™oare.