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Quote by Ali Smith

“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.”

Quote by Ali Smith

Book:Gliff
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Gliff

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Author

Ali Smith
Ali Smith

Ali Smith, born in 1962, is a renowned British writer. Her works are known for their unique style and profound themes, covering various genres such as novels, essays, and plays. Smith's writing often explores the relationship between individuals and society, as well as the intertwining of history and reality. more

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“So it was with the various eccentrics she discovered in the next years. Some she went home with, some she didn't; some she photographed, others she just talked to, but everyone impressed her. Like the irate lady who appeared to Diane one night pulling a kiddy's red express wagon trimmed with bells and filled with cats in fancy hats and dresses. Like the man in Brooklyn who called himself the Mystic Barber who teleported himself to Mars and said he was dead and wore a copper band around his forehead with antennae on it to receive instructions from the Martians. Or the lady in the Bronx who trained herself to eat and sleep underwater or the black who carried a rose and noose around with him at all times, or the person who invented a noiseless soup spoon, or the man from New Jersey who'd collected string for twenty years, winding it into a ball that was now five feet in diameter, sitting monstrous and splendid in his living room.”

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Book:Diane Arbus: A Biography
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“Това бяха семейства без корени, родени някъде и отраснали никъде. Нямаха връзка с Рейтвердегем, нито пък желаеха да имат; причината да се преместят тук бяха само и единствено наличните още терени – парцелите в града бяха поскъпнали или бяха станали рядкост. Нито веднъж тези хора не се представиха на новите си съседи, не посещаваха нито празненствата, нито кръчмите им, не се включваха в инициативите им. Страняха от панаирите им, за по-сигурно си влагаха парите в банката, а не като местните – в касичка, нарочена за кръчмите, която щом се напълнеше достатъчно, се пропиваше за една мимолетна нощ. Новите ни гледаха недоверчиво, докато се прибирахме традиционно нафиркани, или се спотайваха уплашени, докато млатехме нервните си жени или мятахме част от обзавеждането през прозореца. Ала ако някой беше снимал предаване за нас, онези щяха да седнат пред телевизора.”

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Author:Dimitri Verhulst
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“Fakhruddin ‘Iraqi produced one of the most exquisite commentaries on Ibn ‘Arabi’s doctrine of Love. This great poet-scholar had initially been associated with wondering qalandars, a group of outsiders who disregarded social norms and incurred the wrath of the orthodox community.”

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Book:The Sun at Midnight: The Revealed Mysteries of the Ahlul Bayt Sufis
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“Hear that lonesome whistle blowing/'cross the trestle' John Mercer would write to Arlen's music, and suddenly Tin Pan Alley seemed to contain railway yards and bus depots that hadn't been there before. 'It's a quarter to three/there's no one in the place except you and me,' writes Mercer also, and Arlen's music conveys all the solitude of a roadhouse in the outback, as far from Johnny's Savannah' social register as it is from the Arluck parlor. Both Mercer and Arlen saw this other America as clearly as the half-British Raymond Chandler saw Los Angeles, with the freshness and sharpness of outsiders, and their songs constitute priceless social documents.”

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Book:The House That George Built: With a Little Help from Irving, Cole, and a Crew of About Fifty
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“Like Jerry taught us,” Ryan said sagely, “Wise man say, ‘Inside the fence, it’s a dog. Outside the fence, it’s a wolf’.” The others nodded, and Fiona just looked at Rossi sadly.”

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Book:In the Shadow of Downtown 1-6, Roots of Disunion but Shadows of Exodus: a new adult post-apocalyptic dark fantasy serial novel, collection 1
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“Anyone can be made to feel like an outsider. It’s up to the people who have the power to exclude. Often it’s on the basis of race. Depending on a culture’s fears and biases, Jews can be treated as outsiders. Muslims can be treated as outsiders. Christians can be treated as outsiders. The poor are always outsiders. The sick are often outsiders. People with disabilities can be treated as outsiders. Members of the LGBTQ community can be treated as outsiders. Immigrants are almost always outsiders. And in most every society, women can be made to feel like outsiders—even in their own homes. Overcoming the need to create outsiders is our greatest challenge as human beings. It is the key to ending deep inequality. We stigmatize and send to the margins people who trigger in us the feelings we want to avoid. This is why there are so many old and weak and sick and poor people on the margins of society. We tend to push out the people who have qualities we’re most afraid we will find in ourselves—and sometimes we falsely ascribe qualities we disown to certain groups, then push those groups out as a way of denying those traits in ourselves. This is what drives dominant groups to push different racial and religious groups to the margins. And we’re often not honest about what’s happening. If we’re on the inside and see someone on the outside, we often say to ourselves, “I’m not in that situation because I’m different. But that’s just pride talking. We could easily be that person. We have all things inside us. We just don’t like to confess what we have in common with outsiders because it’s too humbling. It suggests that maybe success and failure aren’t entirely fair. And if you know you got the better deal, then you have to be humble, and it hurts to give up your sense of superiority and say, “I’m no better than others.” So instead we invent excuses for our need to exclude. We say it’s about merit or tradition when it’s really just protecting our privilege and our pride.”

OutsidersInsidersPrivilegeleged
Book:The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World
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