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Quote by Sara Baume

“My mother likes odd numbers and is suspicious of the even ones. She reads a new book every week and is bewitched by black holes in the universe. She describes herself as an optimist but she worries about everything—worries incessantly—worries on behalf of others when she feels they are not worrying adequately for themselves. And my mother misses her own mother, my grandmother, immensely, who only has a past now; who is only allowed to be as we remember her.”

Quote by Sara Baume

Work

A Line Made By Walking

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Sara Baume

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“One of the most troubling facts I have had to accept is that people are not all angel or all devil. They are both good and awful to varying degrees and in varying circumstances. On any given day, dependent upon the situation, you will be confronted by either the devil of a person or the angel of the same person or a curious mix of both. This means you can, and most likely will, love and hate the same individual alternately throughout your life. This truth I find painfully heartrending.”

“For he has faith enough, he feels, if he were really to delve into himself, faith enough to move mountains, but he cannot manage to put his back into it. Once in a while the need to create wells up in him, the longing to see a part of himself set free in a work by him, and for days at a time his being can be tensed with joyous, titanic efforts to mold the clay into his Adam. But he is never able to shape him into a semblance of his image, he does not have enough stamina to maintain the self-discipline that it demands. It make take weeks for him to give up the work, but he does give it up, and irritably asks himself why he should keep on: what more does he have to gain? He has enjoyed the pleasure of creation, the tedium of upbringing remains, to nurse, nurture, and support entirely - why? for whom? He is no pelican, he says. But whatever he says, he is still ill at ease and feels that he has not done justice to the expectations he has of himself. It doesn’t help him to confront these expectations and try to doubt that their demands on him are justified. He is faced with a choice, and he must choose; for life is such that when the first youth is gone, sooner or later - depending on the natural disposition of the person - sooner or later a day dawns when resignation comes to you like a seducer and tempts you, and you have to say farewell to the impossible and accept it.”