115 Quotes by Sara Baume

I don’t want to say hello, nor do I want him to know that I’ve seen him and failed to say hello.

But I know I will do neither; nothing. I have all the time in the world, and yet, I can’t be bothered.

So it’s as if,′ I say, ‘I’m okay in my own bones, but I know that my bones aren’t living up to other people’s version of what a life should be, and I feel a little crushed by that, to be honest, a little confused as to how to align the two things: to be an acceptable member of society but to be able to be my own bones both at once.

I lie down and think about how this whole long, strange summer ought to end in a substantial event. But, probably, won’t. For the first time I acknowledge the possibility that nothing will die, or change, or even happen.

I’ve always longed to have a patch of personal wilderness. Of waist-high grass entwined with wildflowers through which I can prance; within which I can lie down and disappear from sight.

People don’t like it when you say real things.

Gossamer ribbons swing from your beard and when they hit the kitchen tiles they form a viscous puddle of drool. There’s something resplendent about the way you sit in your viscous drool, and it suits you. Resplendence suits you.

Why must I test myself? Because no one else will, not anymore. Now that I am no longer a student of any kind, I must take responsibility for the furniture inside my head. I must slide new drawers into chests and attach new rollers to armchairs. I must maintain the old highboys and sideboards and whatnots. Polish, patch, dust, buff.

My sadness isn’t a way I feel but a thing trapped inside the walls of my flesh, like a smog. It takes the sheen off everything. It rolls the world in soot. It saps the power from my limbs and presses my back into a stoop.