Still Life Quotes

“There are moments in life, so monumental and still, that the memory can never be retrieved without a catch to the throat or an interruption to the beat of the heart. Can never be retrieved without the rumbling disquiet of how close that moment came to not having happened at all.”
― Sarah Winman, Still Life

“No single act of generosity remains in isolation. The ripples are many.”
― Sarah Winman, Still Life

“Beautiful art opens our eyes to the beauty of the world, Ulysses. It repositions our sight and judgement. Captures forever that which is fleeting.”
― Sarah Winman, Still Life

“So, time heals. Mostly. Sometimes carelessly. And in unsuspecting moments, the pain catches and reminds one of all that's been missing. The fulcrum of what might have been. But then it passes. Winter moves into spring and swallows return. The proximity of new skin returns to the sheets. Beauty does what is required. Jobs fulfil and conversations inspire. Loneliness becomes a mere Sunday. Scattered clothes. Empty bowls. Rotting fruit. Passing time. But still life in all its beauty and complexity.”
― Sarah Winman, Still Life

“And for two hours the wine was poured, the cheese cut, and the two men talked. Of what? Who knows? Of love, of war, of the past. And they listened with hearts instead of ears, and in the candle-lit kitchen three floors up in an old palazzo, death was put on hold.”
― Sarah Winman, Still Life

“Tree said, Thanks for everything. It’s been nice knowing you. You too, said Cress. Will you be OK? I’m a tree. I’ve done this a thousand times before. Done what? Goodbyes. Really? Think about it. Leaves”
― Sarah Winman, Still Life

“...the world never turned out the way you wanted it to. It simply turned. And you hung on.”
― Sarah Winman, Still Life

“Art versus humanity is not the question, Ulysses. One doesn’t exist without the other. Art is the antidote.”
― Sarah Winman, Still Life

“What are we without love? Waiting, said Evelyn.”
― Sarah Winman, Still Life

“Two people pulling each other into Salvation is the only theme I find worthwhile. —E. M. Forster, Commonplace Book”
― Sarah Winman, Still Life

“We like beauty, don’t we? Something good on the eye cheers us. Does something to us on a cellular level, makes us feel alive and enriched. Beautiful art opens our eyes to the beauty of the world, Ulysses. It repositions our sight and judgment. Captures forever that which is fleeting. A meager stain in the corridors of history, that’s all we are. A little mark of scuff.”
― Sarah Winman, Still Life

“the responsibility of privilege must always be to raise others up.”
― Sarah Winman, Still Life

“Open your heart. Things happen there, if you let them. Wonderful things.”
― Sarah Winman, Still Life

“It’s what we’ve always done. Left a mark on a cave, or on a page. Showing who we are, sharing our view of the world, the life we’re made to bear. Our turmoil is revealed in those painted faces – sometimes tenderly, sometimes grotesquely, but art becomes a mirror. All the symbolism and the paradox, ours to interpret. That’s how it becomes part of us.”
― Sarah Winman, Still Life

“The scale of man—spatially—is about midway between the atom and the star.”
― Sarah Winman, Still Life

“I shall remain astonished.”
― Sarah Winman, Still Life

“My granddaughter. She ran away to experience the nascent stirrings of love (le nascenti agitazioni dell'amore—Cress remembered the words from a poem) and now love has run away from her. She's somewhere up there—and he pointed to the black hills—cradling a broken heart, attempting to understand the complexity of human emotion. Why it's left her diminished when not long ago she felt like a conqueror. And here am I thinking what words can give the experience value. How to explain to her that the improbability of love, which she feels will last forever, will one day shine its light again. What words of consolation can be offered? What words of reassurance can I give her that a life lived without the object of her love is still worthwhile and hers for the taking?”
― Sarah Winman, Still Life

“There are moments in life, so monumental and still, that the memory can never be retrieved without a catch to the throat or an interruption to the beat of the heart. Can never be retrieved without the rumbling disquiet of how close that moment came to not having happened at all. And”
― Sarah Winman, Still Life

“To what shall we toast? said Darnley. What do you think, Temps? To this moment, sir. Oh, very good, said Evelyn. To this moment.”
― Sarah Winman, Still Life

“The choice for the educated woman was clear and stark. Marriage and no creative expression. Or convent and creative expression. So, women entered the convent in order to paint. Such was the sacrifice. But when have women not sacrificed to live as they feel? Not all of us will embrace men, marriage, motherhood.”
― Sarah Winman, Still Life

“And they listened with hearts instead of ears,”
― Sarah Winman, Still Life

“Art versus humanity is not the question, Ulysses. One doesn’t exist without the other. Art is the antidote. Is that enough to make it important? Well, yes, I think it is.”
― Sarah Winman, Still Life

“How beautiful is sunset, when the glow of heaven descends upon a land like thee, Thou paradise of exiles, Italy.”
― Sarah Winman, Still Life

“I said you could never disappoint me, Alys. I'm proud of every inch of you. Every miniscule part of your being. Of your thoughts and your joy and your rage. The way you sing and navigate your way in this often godforsaken—
I love a girl.
(Pause.)
Lucky girl, I say—world.
They looked at one another and the distance halved. Ulysses said, A new year, Alys. I hope it's worthy of you.”
― Sarah Winman, Still Life

“We're embarking on a world of new language and new systems. A world of stares and misunderstandings and humiliations and we'll feel every single one of them, boy. But we mustn't let our inability to know what's what diminish us. Because it'll try. We have to remains curious and open. Two words for you: ley lines.
Ley lines?
Straight lines of electromagnetic energy crisscrossing the Earth at special sites, drawing men and women—and ideas—to their mysterious pulse. We were drawn here, temps. No two ways about it. As many have been before. That Baedeker book? You know what it said?
Go on.
That 'even those whose usual avocations are of the most prosaic nature unconsciously become admirers of poetry and art in Italy.' Would that be so bad? To become an admirer of poetry and art? Until we figure it all out.
It wouldn't, Cress.
To be infused with all the city has to offer and has offered over the centuries? Our purpose revealing itself like the slow unfolding of an iris flower.
Ulysses grinned. It's started already, Cress.
What has?
The poetry.
Cress blushed and stood up. I'll get the cheese, he said.”
― Sarah Winman, Still Life

“All those moments, those years, were his now. To remember or to forget. That’s what Ulysses said. So I choose to remember. The best man ever. And everything about him is vivid. And he is young. And he is laughing.”
― Sarah Winman, Still Life

“Santissima Annunziata in the north, Santo Spirito in the south, Santa Maria Novella over in the west, and Santa Croce in the east.”
― Sarah Winman, Still Life

“And for two hours the wine was poured, the cheese cut, and the two men talked. Of what? Who knows? Of love, of war, of the past. And they listened with hearts instead of ears, and in the candlelit kitchen three floors up in an old palazzo, death was put on hold. For another night or day or week or year.”
― Sarah Winman, Still Life

“Ulysses's enthusiasm for life was a panacea. His optimism, his surety that he wasn't going to die. As if everything that mattered to him, he'd somehow protected from war. How was that possible? He was invincible, Dotty. Marvelously so. I had escaped Margaret and was waiting on the roadside for what? Death, I think. A way out, no matter how permanent. And then along came life. That pricelss, life-affirming moment with a Renaissance masterpiece would have been nothing without him and the good captain. It was about the complete moment. Was I in love with him? Maybe a little. When the bombs fell overhead, and he held my hands and shouted against the tumult, Not today, Evelyn! It's not going to be us today. His faith was compelling, Dotty. I was young again. I felt young again. I will be forever grateful.
You could look for him, said Dotty.
Why on earth would be remember an old woman like me?
Because you're unforgettable, Evelyn Skinner.”
― Sarah Winman, Still Life

“Look out there, said Cress. The solar system. Formed four point six billion years ago. And here are we. With a combined age of seventy-seven. How young we are! And the Earth spins at a thousand miles an hour and turns on its axis once every twenty-four. This is what we're governed by, Alys. Space, time, and motion. Hours, days, seasons. Our lives segmented into a series of moments. You see over there, that faint patch of light? That's the Andromeda Nebula. When we look at it, we're looking back nine hundred thousand years into the past.
Big numbers, Cress.
They are big numbers, my love. That's why ten years of school will go by in no time.”
― Sarah Winman, Still Life