Summer Quotes

“The briefest and slipperiest of the seasons, the one that won't be held to account - because summer won't be held at all, except in bits, fragments, moments, flashes of memory of so-called or imagined perfect summers, summers that never existed.
Not even this one she's in exists. Even though it's apparently the best summer so far of the century. Not even when she's quite literally walking down a road as beautiful and archetypal as this through an actual perfect summer afternoon.
So we mourn it while we're in it.
Look at me walking down a road in summer thinking about the transience of summer.
Even while I'm right at the heart of it I just can't get to the heart of it.”
― Ali Smith, Summer

“And summer's surely really all about an imagined end. We head for it instinctually like it must mean something. We're always looking for it, looking it, heading towards it all year, the way a horizon holds the promise of a sunset. We're always looking for the full open leaf, the open warmth, the promise that we'll one day soon surely be able to lie back and have summer done to us; one day soon we’ll be treated well by the world. Like there really is a kinder finale and it's not just possible but assured, there's a natural harmony that'll be spread at your feet, unrolled like a sunlit landscape just for you. As if what it was always all about, your time on earth, was the full happy stretch of all the muscles of the body on a warmed patch of grass, one long sweet stem of that grass in the mouth.
Care free.
What a thought.
Summer.”
― Ali Smith, Summer

“But that's summer for you. Summer's like walking down a road just like this one, heading towards both light and dark. Because summer isn't just a merry tale. Because there's no merry tale without darkness.”
― Ali Smith, Summer

“Whatever age you are, he says. You still die young.”
― Ali Smith, Summer

“I don't know that I believe in gods enough to ask of them. But if they exist and I might be so bold as to say, excuse me, if you're there can you please make that sunlit summer day longer and these dark days shorter”
― Ali Smith, Summer

“You've got to use every moment. Because in the blink of an eye it's past you, and you never get your time again.
Forgive me, Grace, Charlotte said smiling, but I think that's rubbish. I believe we meet our times with our full and ready selves at whatever ages we are when the times happen to us. That's what it's all about.”
― Ali Smith, Summer

“If people think you like them, Charlotte said, well, it can go either way. There’s a lot of powerplay in liking and being liked. Such a powerful connection, it’s a chance to make the world bigger for someone else. Or smaller. That’s always the choice we’ve got.”
― Ali Smith, Summer

“The English word for summer comes from Old English sumor, from the proto-indo-european root sam, meaning both one and together”
― Ali Smith, Summer

“Funny, she says leaning against an unexpected warm place in the stone on the threshold of the church and liking the feel of it on her arm. Like, how we overload summer most out of all the seasons, I mean with our expectations of it.
Nah, he says and nips the end of his rollie with a finger and thumb till it’s out. Summers can take it. That’s why they’re called summers.”
― Ali Smith, Summer

“And here was a summer day, asking to be longer. As if a summer's day wasn't long enough.”
― Ali Smith, Summer

“There is no doubt, Daniel says. You really are you.
Yes, Hannah says. I really am me. And you really are you. But if we follow Einstein's thinking and add together you plus me plus time plus space. What does that all make?
Then she waits, like she always did, for Daniel finally to catch her up.
What? What does it all make? Daniel says.
It makes you and I more than just you or I, Hannah says. It makes us us.”
― Ali Smith, Summer

“I have a vision that the modern sense of being a hero is like shining a bright light on things that need to be seen.”
― Ali Smith, Summer

“We're always looking for the full open leaf, the open warmth, the promise that we'll one day soon surely be able to lie back and have summer done to us; one day soon we'll be treated well by the world.”
― Ali Smith, Summer

“Maybe coincidence never means the way you want it to. Because if it did it wouldn’t be coincidence, would it?”
― Ali Smith, Summer

“You can’t put a pin through a summer.”
― Ali Smith, Summer

“The longer Sacha lives the more insane she realizes the species she belongs to is.”
― Ali Smith, Summer

“I suppose the fact that we're all a lot more accustomed to blatancy these days means that blatancy itself has to get even more blatant, her mother says.”
― Ali Smith, Summer

“A prison is a prison, he says. Whatever you fill the time with.”
― Ali Smith, Summer

“Els punts i final ens agraden: les simetries, trobar sentit al que no en té -¿és potser aquesta, la gran tasca de la literatura: explicar-nos el món per fer-nos creure que té sentit?”
― Ali Smith, Summer

“Però això és el que fa l'estiu. L'estiu és com caminar per un camí ben bé com aquest, dirigint-te tant cap a la llum com cap a la foscor. Perquè l'estiu no és només un conte alegre. Però no hi ha conte alegre sense la foscor. I sens dubte l'estiu és realment sobre un final imaginat. Ens hi dirigim instintivament com si hagués de significar alguna cosa. Sempre l'estem buscant, buscant arribar-hi, dirigint-nos-hi tot l'any, com l'horitzó conté la promesa d'una posta de sol. Sempre estem buscant la fulla totalment oberta, l'escalfor oberta, la promesa que un dia proper serem capaços de jeure i tenir l'estiu fet per a nosaltres; un dia proper el món ens tractarà bé. Com si fos realment un final més amable i no fos només possible sinó segur, una harmonia natural que s'escamparà als teus peus, es desenrotllarà com un paisatge il·luminat només per a tu. Com si de tot el que es tracta sempre, el teu temps a la terra, fos l'estirament plenament feliç dels músculs del cos en una clapa escalfada d'herba, una tija llarga i dolça d'herba a la boca.
Sense preocupacions.
Quina idea.
Estiu.
El Conte d'estiu.
No existeix aquesta obra, Grace.
Que no t'enganyin.”
― Ali Smith, Summer

“Ell somriu. Es una noia amable, encantadora i intel·ligent, tot i que ja no és tan espavilada com quan era petita. Això, de vegades, l'entristeix. Fa una mena de feina que se li menja l'esperit. Està molt sola. Això segur. És com observar com es va erosionant.”
― Ali Smith, Summer

“Oh, m'encanta Kafka, diu la mare. Un llibre hauria de ser una destral per trencar el mar de gel de dins nostre. Penso que és una de les coses més boniques que s'han escrit mai.”
― Ali Smith, Summer

“Creativity is cultural not because it is derivative of it, but because it aims to heal culture. Art saturated with the unconscious acts like a compensatory dream in the individual: it tries to rebalance and address deep-rooted problems.”
― Ali Smith, Summer

“Creativity is cultural joy because it is derivative of it, but because it aims to heal culture. Art is saturated with the unconscious acts like a compensatory dream in the individual: it tries to rebalance and address deep-rooted problems.”
― Ali Smith, Summer

“Funny, she says leaning against an unexpected warm place in the stone on the threshold of the church and liking the feel of it on her arm. Like, how we overload summer most out of all the seasons, I mean with our expectations of it.”
― Ali Smith, Summer

“The surface of things is a lie, and everybody who sees the hoardings for what they are knows it.”
― Ali Smith, Summer

“The surface of things is a lie, and everybody who sees the hoarding for what they are knows it.”
― Ali Smith, Summer

“Change is the nature of luck.”
― Ali Smith, Summer

“On the contrary, time and space are what lace us all up together, Hannah says. What makes us part of the larger picture. Universally speaking. The problem is, we tend to think we're separate. But it's a delusion.”
― Ali Smith, Summer

“Eras end, Paulina said. I'm Romanian. I know. They have to. So that new eras can begin.”
― Ali Smith, Summer