On the Calculation of Volume II Quotes

“simply because the summer has been on the cool side. As a meteorologist one is almost expected to deliver particular weather conditions at particular times of year, she said. A proper summer. A proper winter. As if you hadn’t done your job until you had delivered a certain sort of weather. Aren’t we going to have a winter this year? As if the seasons were a concept of sorts that we dragged around with us. From childhood perhaps, she said, with winter snow and summer sun. Or perhaps not even that. Perhaps the human seasons really only existed in films or in our photo albums. Especially if you have children. She did it herself: took pictures of typical seasons. She had noticed that she took more pictures when the seasons lived up to our expectations of them: pictures of snow in winter and bright sunshine in summer, a hot day on the beach, red and yellow leaves and a child in rain boots in autumn—and always snaps with sandals in summer, even in summers when most days were rain boot days. As if we had templates for the seasons and when everything fits we take a picture. As if it is an event in itself that the weather has got it right.”
― Solvej Balle, On the Calculation of Volume II

“time is not a circle and it is not a line, it is not a wheel and it is not”
― Solvej Balle, On the Calculation of Volume II

“Evenings when you can sit outside at midnight and listen to the darkness.”
― Solvej Balle, On the Calculation of Volume II

“I had to be careful, I told myself. I already know that I leave a mark. I consume the world. I sustain burns and sprained ankles. But I also put other people in danger. I drag them out of their eighteenth of November. Out of their routine…. I have to be careful. I am a danger to my surroundings.”
― Solvej Balle, On the Calculation of Volume II

“My father did not think it was stealing. He felt, rather, that the broadcasting of private phone conversations in public spaces was theft. Of other people's peace and quiet, their privacy, possibly even their humanity. As if the speaker was sitting in their own private space and regarded the other passengers as fixtures and fittings: like a door, a seat, a luggage rack, he said. As if fellow passengers were not people but objects. My mother chimed in, citing the example of children at her school who were often delivered to the school gates by parents with mobile phones in their hands. As if the children were parcels being dispatched or bags of shopping being carried home. I thought of my woebegone fellow passenger and her broken heart. Had I been a carrier bag in the corner? A luggage rack? Or more like a curtain that could be drawn across the compartment window? I don't know, but my parents had already changed the subject.”
― Solvej Balle, On the Calculation of Volume II

“Temperature and precipitation were meteorological phenomena, she said. Cold and heat, cloudbursts and drought. But seasons? She saw them more as psychological phenomena. Memory concentrates. Accepted stereotypes. Conglomerates of experiences and feelings, perhaps.”
― Solvej Balle, On the Calculation of Volume II

“time is a container. That is how it is. It is a day one can step into. Again and again. Not a stream which one can only dip into once. Time doesn’t fly anywhere”
― Solvej Balle, On the Calculation of Volume II

“My year feels like a journey I left behind long ago.”
― Solvej Balle, On the Calculation of Volume II

“I have lost my seasons. Goodbye seasons. Hello November.”
― Solvej Balle, On the Calculation of Volume II

“It’s not easy to hold on to spring.”
― Solvej Balle, On the Calculation of Volume II

“And if it works I will have a seasons machine”
― Solvej Balle, On the Calculation of Volume II

“know that I am building something. A construction. A jigsaw puzzle”
― Solvej Balle, On the Calculation of Volume II

“What I can ascertain is that hope does sometimes come calling. A rare guest and not always welcome.”
― Solvej Balle, On the Calculation of Volume II

“Ah”
― Solvej Balle, On the Calculation of Volume II

“traditions don’t need to harmonize”
― Solvej Balle, On the Calculation of Volume II

“Kävelen pitkin kaupunkia vailla muuta tehtävää kuin siirtyä päivästä toiseen. Olen vain kaduilla kiertelevä ihminen, en ehkä edes ihminen, ehkä pikemminkin jonkinlainen eläin, en takaa-ajaja enkä takaa-ajettu, en nälkäinen enkä kylläinen, vain talojen viertä vaeltava olento.”
― Solvej Balle, Om udregning af rumfang II