Sara Baume, A Line Made by Walking

"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."

45 Quotes

"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."

Sara Baume, A Line Made by Walking

"I know with unqualified certainty that I want to die. But I also know with equivalent certainty that I won't do anything about it. That I will only remain here and wait for death to indulge me."

Sara Baume, A Line Made by Walking

"It's too warm for red wine; now I mix gin and tonics instead. I find they make the ordinary sensation of living lighter, less ruffled."

Sara Baume, A Line Made by Walking

"This morning, I see the lead in my glass tumbler. A slim, bright glint, a silverfish. I feel it collecting in my blood, papercutting the lining of my veins."

Sara Baume, A Line Made by Walking

"This morning, the sun endures past dawn. I realise that it is August: the summer's last stand."

Sara Baume, A Line Made by Walking

"What bothered me was all of the time he wasted by drumming, and all the time I wasted by listening to him drum, by taking pleasure in it, for pleasure is almost always a waste of time."

Sara Baume, A Line Made by Walking

"Sometimes things happen that give me cause to believe I no longer exist. Car park barriers which do not lift when I drive towards them, automatic doors which do not open automatically as I approach."

Sara Baume, A Line Made by Walking

"And out the bus window, here is my dead world come true, my whole dead world in motion."

Sara Baume, A Line Made by Walking

"I think: by the time I'm old, nobody will be able to die any more."

Sara Baume, A Line Made by Walking

"But now I remember, of course, I'm never going to be old."

Sara Baume, A Line Made by Walking

"In the days approaching Christmas, she always reminds me of the previous year: 'Jane crocheted you an entire poncho, and all you gave her was a bone-shaped beach stone."

Sara Baume, A Line Made by Walking

"Our toys were sixteen or seventeen; only the very eldest were in their early twenties, because, apparently, I didn't envision anything of particular interest in life beyond twenty-five. And now I am a greater age than any of the toys were allowed to reach, older than I even cared to imagine as a child."

Sara Baume, A Line Made by Walking

"But nowadays I feel guilty that I am granted the immunity of the artistically gifted, having never actually achieved anything to prove myself worthy."

Sara Baume, A Line Made by Walking

"But I have never wanted to be perceived as chatty and bright. I have always wanted to be solemn and mysterious."

Sara Baume, A Line Made by Walking

"The old summer's-end melancholy nips at my heels. There's no school to go back to; no detail of my life will change come the onset of September; yet still, I feel the old trepidation."

Sara Baume, A Line Made by Walking

"I never went downstairs to join my housemates around the television. I cooked dinner later than everyone else and carried the plate up to my bedroom. I knew they must have thought me aloof, or a little bit eccentric, or maybe even unkind, but I didn't care. Once the kitchen door swung shut behind me, I was alone, and so everything was okay."

Sara Baume, A Line Made by Walking

"Did it do me any good, early in life, to believe so many things which were not true? Or did it damage me? Pouring a foundation of disappointment, of uncertainty."

Sara Baume, A Line Made by Walking

"I look at the cake in my mother's arms and think: here stands the only person in the whole world who'd go to such trouble for fractious, ungrateful me."

Sara Baume, A Line Made by Walking

"Why is it only now that I can see how many ordinary things are actually grotesque?"

Sara Baume, A Line Made by Walking

"People don't like it when you say real things."

Sara Baume, A Line Made by Walking

✉️

Get more quotes like Sara Baume, A Line Made by Walking's — every morning.

Join thousands of wisdom seekers getting daily quotes from 300,000+ curated sources.

Free forever. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.