Gliff Quotes

“All the people living here, including the feral children, were right now unverifiables. One person here had been unverified for saying out loud that a war was a war when it wasn’t permitted to call it a war. Another had found herself declared unverifiable for writing online that the killing of many people by another people was a genocide. Another had been unverified for defaming the oil conglomerates by saying they were directly responsible for climate catastrophe. Another had been unverified for speaking at a protest about people’s right to protest.”
― Ali Smith, Gliff

“Our mother thought smartphones were liabilities. So, what you want, she’d say whenever we begged her for a smartphone or a smart anything, is to have a device that means you see everything through it, as if everything is at your fingertips and you can hold it all in the palm of one hand. It would certainly make you feel very important to yourself. What you’d be preoccupied with would be so important to you that there would be no point in you looking at anything else.”
― Ali Smith, Gliff

“It was always exciting to me the number of things a single word could mean”
― Ali Smith, Gliff

“It takes a lifetime, sometimes, to work out what anything you're doing's got to do with the real realities of living.”
― Ali Smith, Gliff

“A tyrant runs a country. He does this via a lot of other people doing this tyrant's work for him. They do it partly because they think he'll kill them or their families if they don't, and partly because it makes them feel powerful too.
One of the things you're not allowed to say in this country is that the tyrant is a tyrant.”
― Ali Smith, Gliff

“We can't solve it. But we can still salve it.”
― Ali Smith, Gliff

“Sometimes I think you're a very old and wise person disguised as you, I said.

Thanks, she said.

And sometimes, I said, I think you're one of the youngest greenest people I'll ever know.

I am all my me's, she said. I am complete.”
― Ali Smith, Gliff

“I'm all my me's, she said. I am complete.”
― Ali Smith, Gliff

“Like there was such a thing as a family of words, one that stretched across different languages all touching on each other, hitting or striking each other, acting on each other, influencing each other, agreeing with each other or throwing each other out, disturbing each other, doing all of these things at once.”
― Ali Smith, Gliff

“Amazing to be thinking those words together again: hope, and I.”
― Ali Smith, Gliff

“These were the days when I found out what power can do.

It thickens like muscles. It's red-blooded and it tastes like blood.”
― Ali Smith, Gliff

“One day, my sister said, Bri, who is really good with machines and tech, is going to invent a technology that eats all the data that exists about people online so people can be free of being made to be what data says they are.

I am? I said.

Yeah, and then you're going to invent a technology that means you can stop surveillance following people who are travelling from one place to another, because that surveillance isn't anything to do with the real journeys people have to make in the world. And we're going to call that technology Campervan.

Yep, I said. And we'll call the tech that eats all the saved data Colon.

Colon and Campervan, my sister said. They're the future. We're the future. It is this simple.”
― Ali Smith, Gliff

“I'm Daisy, and which of those many names she told us are you?

Which would you like me to be? I said.

Nice of you to offer me a choice, she said, and are you a boy or a girl?

Yes I am, I said.

Okay, she said, well, that's either very brave of you or very stupid, given recent developments of history, so which is it?”
― Ali Smith, Gliff

“And Posho was saying the kind of thing he thought he was supposed to say too. Loads of them say that stuff about girls, the ones that are most threatened by girls do. Some of the boys and men think it makes them more superior to say that stuff. They hate to think something outside them can see them and maybe judge them. It's not just men or boys, a lot of people are threatened by knowing that people who they think aren't anything like them exist.”
― Ali Smith, Gliff

“Can you read that? someone behind me said.

I can. What does it mean? I said.

It means you shouldn't be here and you'd better go back to where you came from fast, the girl said.

If that's what it says then it's telling the story of my life, I said.”
― Ali Smith, Gliff

“He's not our family, she said. That's what the people in the passport offices kept saying to us.

Yeah but that's okay, I said. Family can be more things than people say it is.”
― Ali Smith, Gliff

“Tell me your list of questions.

Colon scrolled his watch.

Your date of birth your place of birth your ethnicity your gender your sexuality your religion your postcode your latest blood test figures your education level the education level of your parents the current and historic job status and income level of your parents the homeowner status of your parents the details about your parents regarding their employment or self employment. And any disabilities. What you think is the single most important issue facing us in this country today and anything else issue wise facing us today and whether you think immigration is a very big problem and whether you prefer dogs or cats and what you think is a general threat as concerns defence and foreign affairs and homegrown terrorism and which toothpaste you use and why. And whether you agree with most people that re-education is a good policy in the treatment of unverifiables. And whether you consider yourself a person who has ideas, and who you'll probably vote for if you're eligible to vote at the next three elections. And whether you think climate change is real and what your favourite colour is and whether you think homegrown environmental protest terrorists should be exiled along with illegal immigrants and do you prefer to shop online or offline. And which social media platforms do you use and what for and which platforms do you like most and least and which do you trust most and least. And depending on which product we're featuring, this week it's Patchay painkillers, there's a separate list of questions about them I'll ask when we get to them that also covers the full range of Requiescat health products. And finally. What your favourite number is and which number it's best to reach you at.

[Pause.]

And you have to answer truthfully, he said. Or they'll know.”
― Ali Smith, Gliff

“I can't believe you're being so profligate already.

Being so what? she said.

Profligate, I said.

You are bullying me with words longer than the length of my life, she said.”
― Ali Smith, Gliff

“It takes a lifetime, sometimes, to work out what anything you're doing's got to do with the real realities of living. Rather than what turns out to be the fake realities.”
― Ali Smith, Gliff

“There are different realities, she'd say, and the net is a reality with designs on general reality, and I'll prefer it if you both experience the real realities as your foremost realities.

You are denying us the education that most kids our age are getting from their devices, I said.

No I'm not, she said. Truthfully I'm amazed anyway that you in particular, Bri, seem to know, without anyone ever telling you, how to make devices do what you want them to do. But I'm asking you to source your education more widely and more dimensionally.”
― Ali Smith, Gliff

“I sat and thought of more and more things to do and ways to do them. The things and ways spread out round me like the nets trapeze artists up in the roofs of circus tents had beneath the tightropes and trapezes in case they fell.”
― Ali Smith, Gliff

“Mrs Upshaw didn't like people, she was just one of those people who didn't like people, capable from time to time of leaving a dead rat on top of the things in our bin to let us know we were on borrowed time as far as she was concerned.”
― Ali Smith, Gliff

“It was like they all had their backs to me, even the ones facing me.

Their disconnect was what elegant meant.

Like something vital had been withdrawn from them, for its own protection maybe?”
― Ali Smith, Gliff

“When my sister came to get me from the library the next morning I was tucked in the corner with my head on a shelf, asleep on a paperback copy of a novel called Man in the Holocene, written by someone called, I can’t remember now, something that sounded like a coffee, or a deodorant, something like Max Fresh.”
― Ali Smith, Gliff

“Child’s life’s as brief as a candle.”
― Ali Smith, Gliff

“All the people living here, including the feral children, were right now unverifiables. They were largely unverifiable because of words. One person here had been unverified for saying out loud that a war was a war when it wasn’t permitted to call it a war. Another had found herself declared unverifiable for writing online that the killing of many people by another people was a genocide. Another had been unverified for defaming the oil conglomerates by saying they were directly responsible for climate catastrophe. Another had been unverified for speaking at a protest about people’s right to protest.”
― Ali Smith, Gliff

“We sat for a while saying nothing in the bathroom. Don’t do that, I said. (She was biting a nail.) Sorry, she said. Then, a little later, she said, heart rendering. Like covering your heart in concrete at the same time as melting it and giving it up.”
― Ali Smith, Gliff

“Family can be more things than people say it is.”
― Ali Smith, Gliff

“You are bullying me with words longer than the length of my life, she said.”
― Ali Smith, Gliff

“The grey horse’s bones were close to its skin all over it and it seemed huge even though it was quite a small horse, the smallest one in this field.”
― Ali Smith, Gliff