292 Quotes by Ali Smith

Myself, I thought about you the whole time. Even when I wasn’t thinking about you, I thought about you.

Edges are magic, too; there’s a kind of forbidden magic on the borders of things, always a ceremony of crossing over, even if we ignore it or are unaware of it.

With a bit of help and a bit of luck, we get to be more than the one thing or the nothing that history’d have us be. We’re only here by the grace and the work of others. I am anyway. Here’s to those others who helped, that’s my prayer when I go to my bed, and may I be such an other to a good many myself.

It’s so warm it’s almost friendly. A friendly work of art. I’ve never thought such a thing in my life. And look at it. It’s never sentimental. It’s generous, but it’s sardonic too. And whenever it’s sardonic, a moment later it’s generous again.

I would give anything to taste. To taste just dust. Because now that I’m nearly gone, I’m more here than I ever was. Now that I’m nothing but air, all I want is to breathe it. Now that I’m silent forever, haha, it’s all words words words with me. Now that I can’t just reach out and touch, it’s all I want, is to.

The pauses are a precise language, more a language than actual language is, Elisabeth thinks.

Because when I think about what it was like to live with you, it was like all these things. It was like living in a poem or a picture, a story, a piece of music, when I think of it now. It was wonderful.

How very disappointing truth is sometimes.

All we need to do, reader or writer, from first line to final page, is be as open as a book, and be alive to the life in language – on all its levels.