Seth H

“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

“suddenly Olga felt the urge to go outside, into the night. She suggested that, for once, we take a nocturnal stroll together. That in the dark you feel a little more like a human being.”
― Solvej Balle, On the Calculation of Volume IV

“Like a bride, he said, who tosses her bouquet to the guests but then dives into the crowd to catch it herself.”
― Solvej Balle, On the Calculation of Volume III

“If you are lonely, you feel ashamed, and the only relief to your shame is being alone, which is what makes you lonely in the first place.”
― Kiran Desai, The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny