292 Quotes by Ali Smith

Fear is one of my belongings. Fear will always be a part of any belonging, anywhere, that I ever do, for the rest of my life. I fought hard, to get here to your country. And the first thing you did when I arrived was hand me a letter saying, “Welcome to a country in which you are not welcome. You are now a designated unwelcome person with whom we will do as we please.

In her dream, she slapped the past in its face.

She likes to read, she reads all the time, and she prefers to be reading several things at once, she says it gives endless perspective and dimension.

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.

He was clearly in love with Amber too, and this time it wasn’t the usual water off the back of the duck. Instead, the duck, wounded by a hunter and bewildered because half its head had been shot way, and was still tottering about on its webby feet by the side of the pond. From the one side it looked like a duck usually looks. From the other, it was a different story.

But, of course, memory and responsibility are strangers. They’re foreign to each other. Memory always goes its own way quite regardless.

Art is always an exchange, like love, whose giving and taking can be a complex and wounding matter, according to Michelangelo.

The slightness of it gestures against the odds. It is like a magic spell.

That’s the thing about things. They fall apart, always have, always will, it’s in their nature.