Ali Smith

“Forget it,” said Jonna. “Forget it. Don’t grieve for a net, grieve for everything else that’s broken and can’t ever be mended. Your uncle liked making nets; it was what he knew, it was calming and familiar. Going into that loft you’ve talked about. I’m sure it helped him shut everything out, and everyone. He wasn’t thinking about fish, not a bit, and not about you getting the net as a present. He was just at peace, doing work that was his and only his.

“Dreadful,” he burst out. “Faces, faces—and their hands! Expressionless, meaningless, raw material

have not thought much about the face of death. And do you know why? Because you do not live with all your strength, all the time, in your own triumph dashing ahead of time, anticipating it and disdaining it. I am awake, always. Even in my brief dreams I continue to work, constantly. Nothing must be lost.”

“She’s not shy; she just won’t bother trying to be pleasant. She thinks it’s artistic to be gloomy.

She began to anticipate a solitude of her own, peaceful and full of possibility. She felt something close to exhilaration, of a kind that people can permit themselves when they are blessed with love

There are empty spaces that must be respected — those often long periods when a person can’t see the pictures or find the words and needs to be left alone.

To feel even just the thought of one’s own bared self near someone else’s beauty

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

The lifelong friends, he said. We sometimes wait a lifetime for them

Always be reading something, he said. Even when we’re not physically reading. How else will we read the world? Think of it as a constant.