The Autograph Man Quotes

“She hopes for nothing except fine weather and a resolution. She wants to end properly, like a good sentence. ”
― Zadie Smith, The Autograph Man

“She loved you in the morning because the day was new.”
― Zadie Smith, The Autograph Man

“People don't settle for people. They resolve to be with them. It takes faith. You draw a circle in the sand and agree to stand in it and believe in it.”
― Zadie Smith, The Autograph Man

“He had her in his heart, but not always in his mind.”
― Zadie Smith, The Autograph Man

“Under every friendship there is a difficult sentence that must be said, in order that the friendship can be survived.”
― Zadie Smith, The Autograph Man

“He wanted to meet her for the first time, over and over...He told himself the story that this was the great tragedy of his heart. The great tragedy of his heart was that it always needed to be told a story.”
― Zadie Smith, The Autograph Man

“You never know, until it happens, what you will owe the dead.”
― Zadie Smith, The Autograph Man

“One of the many things TV does not show you is the potential range and horror of the human form. For this alone, thought Alex, it is rightly celebrated.”
― Zadie Smith, The Autograph Man

“It's just the problem with those things, and what i've learnt is this: they're meant to be a shortcut to the ultimate... thing, the plane, or whatever you want to say it like, yeah? It's meant to be: here's your thirty quid or whatever, take me to higher consciousness, please. And it don't work that way, bro. You don't get the full benefit. You've got to work your way up that tree, meaning that that is an allegory which is saying: you can't just fly up to the branches. You get me?”
― Zadie Smith, The Autograph Man

“And drunk men take dares like they take breaths.”
― Zadie Smith, The Autograph Man

“What do you want to do Marvin?" croaked Alex, and then coughed the frog out.
"Excuse me?"
"Apart from being a milk operative. I mean, what do you want to do with you life?"
Marvin eloquently groaned, like a disappointed academic, and slapped his own forehead.
"I tell you something, yeah? Das an idiot's question, yeah? Life is going to do things to me. And that's all there is. And it's all good. Yogurts?”
― Zadie Smith, The Autograph Man

“He wanted to be in the world and take what came with it, endings local and universal, full stops, periods, looks of injured disappointment and the everyday war. He liked the everyday war. He was taking that with fries. To go.”
― Zadie Smith, The Autograph Man

“Mnóstwo zjawisk, które dziś określamy mianem syndromów, miało wtedy prostsze nazwy. Czasy były prostsze. To właśnie dlatego ludzie mówią o nich "stare, dobre czasy".”
― Zadie Smith, The Autograph Man

“Oggigiorno è molto probabile che esista un nome per questo genere di cosa. Qualcosa come Sindrome da Eccessivo Cordoglio (sec). Ma alla fine del diciannovesimo secolo, con qualche eccezione, i più sono ancora pronti a chiamarlo amore. «Ah, quanto lo amava» si dicono a vicenda, scrollando la testa e comprando mazzolini di fiori a due soldi l’uno in Covent Garden o dintorni. Molte cose oggi definite sindromi, all’epoca avevano nomi più semplici. Erano i tempi a essere più semplici. È per questo che alcuni li chiamano i bei tempi andati.”
― Zadie Smith, The Autograph Man

“[L]ike everybody, held hospitals in the highest, purest, dread and loathing. To come in with a bump and leave with the baby – this is the only grace available in the hospital. Other than that, there is only pain. The concentration of pain. Hospitals are unique in this concentration. There are no areas in the world dedicated to the concentration of pleasure (theme parks and their like are concentration of the symbols of pleasure, not pleasure itself), there are no buildings dedicated to laughter, friendship or love.”
― Zadie Smith, The Autograph Man

“Ludzie nie zaklepują sobie innych ludzi. Podejmują świadomą decyzję, że będą z nimi. To wymaga wiary. Rysujesz koło na piasku i zgadzasz się w nim stać, i wierzyć w nie.”
― Zadie Smith, The Autograph Man