115 Quotes by Sara Baume

And I wonder if any of the road-kill creatures actually wanted to die and threw themselves beneath the speeding wheels. A lethargic swallow who couldn’t bear the prospect of flying all the way back to Africa again. An insomniac hedgehog who couldn’t stand the thought of lying awake all winter with no one to talk to.

I can’t remember the name of the piece, or the artist. Maybe it wasn’t even an artwork. Why must I automatically assume that every strange object is a sculpture, that every public display of unorthodox behavior is an act of performance.

My phone doesn’t ring and the doorbell doesn’t either and I begin to wonder whether I am still alive.

Appreciate the people around you. Don’t replump their pillows until they return safely in the evening.

I decided that if I didn’t allow myself to fall asleep, then I wouldn’t have to wake up again and despair.

There really isn’t much wrong with me,′ I say, ’it’s just that, well, I’m not like other people; I don’t want the things they want. And this is not right, I mean, in other people’s eyes, and I feel as though they feel they are duty-bound to normalise me, that it isn’t okay just to not want the things they want, you know?

Though I am naturally curious about people, I’m also naturally uneasy when they are right in front of me; when I am right in front of them.

My only chance is to pretend it’s a day like any other; to keep the despair only as great as on all the others.

No matter how far I try to travel from people, people always appear. Either they follow me, or they’re already there, and I followed them, unwittingly.