Noam > Recent Status Updates

'I want a silence to come down over me like snow and cover me, yes, I want a silence to come falling down over everything that exists, and also me, yes, over me, yes, let a silence snow down and cover me, make me invisible, make everything invisible, make everything go away, I think and all these thoughts will go away, all the pictures I have, all the pictures gathered up in my memory tormenting me' p.614

'when he gets to Asle he says why aren't you going into class?
But, Asle says
Yes, The Teacher says
I, you know, Asle says
Yes, The Teacher says
Yes I, Asle says
Yes I, I, I'm too scared to read aloud, he says
Scared to read aloud? The Teacher says
and it's like he can't believe what he's hearing
Yes, Asle says
and The Teacher looks at him and Asle can tell that he doesn't believe what he's saying' p.562

'I was sitting in my chair he sat down in the empty chair next to me and I was suddenly shocked and afraid, yes, it was like I was suddenly jealous and I told Åsleik he had to get up
Get up. I said
and he stood up right away and he looked at me taken aback
I didn't know, he said
and I felt ashamed of myself
Sorry, I said
I didn't know, he said again
No of course, I say
But that's Ales's chair, I say' p.560

'the innermost picture inside me that all the pictures I've tried to paint are attempting to look like, this innermost picture, that's a kind of soul and a kind of body in one, yes, that's my spirit, what I call spirit, it goes back to God and becomes part of God at the same time as it stays itself, I think' p.497

'now he wants to paint just his own pictures, because his head is full of pictures, it's a real torment, yes, pictures get lodged in his head all the time, not as things that have happened but like a kind of photograph, taken right there, right then, and he can kind of flip from one of the pictures in his head to another, it's like he has a photo album in his head and the strangest things are there as pictures' p.387

'now he wants to paint just his own pictures, because his head is full of pictures, it's a real torment, yes, pictures get lodged in his head all the time, not as things that have happened but like a kind of photograph, taken right there, right then, and he can kind of flip from one of the pictures in his head to another, it's like he has a photo album in his head and the strangest things are there as pictures' p.387

'and, I think, it's the same with the writing I like to read, what matters isn't what it literally says about this or that, it's something else, something that silently speaks in and behind the lines and sentences' p.310

'and there's The Rowboat and The Fjord and everything, Asle thinks and Sister stops
But, she says
Yes, he says
Mother says, she says' p.271

'and then I go into the playground and stop and stand there and look at the snow angels and they are so beautiful, so beautiful that if I tried to paint them it would turn out to be a bad painting, compared to the sight of the snow angels, I think, because that's how it is, that's how it almost always is, what's beautiful in life turns out bad in a painting because it's like there's too much beauty' p.128

'and I think that the only thing I want to do on Christmas Eve is make the day disappear, paint it away, and that's what I do, and I'd rather not eat anything on Christmas Eve either, I just fast, as they call it, and paint, I paint from early in the morning through the whole time I'm awake until night,' p.91-92

'it's as if every picture like that, every last one of the thousands of pictures I have in my head or wherever | have them, is saying something, saying something almost unique and irreplaceable, but it's practically impossible to grasp what the picture is saying, of course I might think that the picture is saying this or that, obviously I can think that, and obviously I do think it,' p.30

'and then I look at the round table over by the window, there are two chairs next to it and one of them, the one on the left, that's where I sat and sit, and the right-hand one was where Ales always sat, when she was still alive, but then she died, too young, and I don't want to think about that, and my sister Alida, she died too young too, and I don't want to think of that either' p.15-16

'"Hallo, Rabbit," he said, "is that you?"
"Let's pretend it isn't," said Rabbit, "and see what happens."
"I've got a message for you."
"I'll give it to him."' p.114

'Sometimes he thought sadly to himself, "Why?" and sometimes he thought, "Wherefore?" and sometimes he thought, "Inasmuch as which?"-and sometimes he didn't quite know what he was thinking about. So when Winnie-the-Pooh came stumping along, Eeyore was very glad to be able to stop thinking for a little, in order to say "How do you do?" in a gloomy manner to him.' p.45

'Things I live with use their stillness to goad me. The glossy white toilet is so resolutely immobile, I've developed the urge to wrench it from the floor and shove it out of place.' p.115-116

'There was a time when I was saying eggbutt snaffle several days a week. I think life was simpler back then. I should probably say eggbutt snaffle more often.

Eggbutt snaffle,

eggbutt snaffle,

eggbutt snaffle,

eggbutt snaffle.' p.105

'Two other nails I have kept include the one from your big toe. Its deep maroon reminds me of the Rothko chapel and the Victoria plums begging to be plucked from the branches draped over the Tottenham canal. I thought it was a hawk moth, the day you left it on the rug. I lowered my hand with so much care to the floor. I waited for it to flap.' p.91

'In 1864, the Alabama was sunk outside Cherbourg, a town I visited to celebrate the achievements of a gynaecologist called Lom. His best friend and lover was a man named Fig. Fig was a classical pianist. He lost a finger during World War II. Ripped off by shrapnel.' p.31

'I keep the knife in the right-hand drawer of my desk because I like to admire it when I sit here. Its weight and shape inspire me. Its purpose absolute.' p.16

'When the stairlift appeared in the front garden, I knew she was dead. Reg came rushing out of the house and pushed a toaster into my hands. I've a better one in Chingford anyway, he said.' p.2

'L'impatience, se dirent Jérôme et Sylvie, est une vertu du XXe siècle. A vingt ans, quand ils eurent vu, ou cru voir, ce que la vie pouvait être, la somme de bonheurs qu'elle recelait, les infinies conquêtes qu'elle permettait, etc., ils surent qu'ils n'auraient pas la force d'attendre. Ils pouvaient, tout comme les autres, arriver; mais ils ne voulaient qu'être arrivés.' p.73

'Un bel avenir s'ouvrait devant eux; ils en étaient à ces instants épiques où le patron vous jauge un jeune homme, se félicite in petto de l'avoir pris, s'empresse de le former, de le façonner à son image, l'invite à dîner, lui tape sur le ventre, lui ouvre, d'un seul geste, les portes de la fortune.' p.69

'Mais la seule perspective des travaux les effrayait. Il leur aurait fallu emprunter, économiser, investir. Ils ne s'y résignaient pas. Le cœur n'y était pas: ils ne pensaient qu'en termes de tout ou rien.' p.22

'Je sais, comme savent les enfants, certaines choses de mon père, des choses qu'il ne m'a pas dites' p.96

'On ne sait jamais. Vous allez voir. Les choses sont différentes, ici, la nuit.' p.28

'Ou peut-être sentent-ils, ces lieux, que l'on n'a pas la conscience entièrement tranquille. Que l'on n'a pas le cœur entièrement tranquille.' p.9

'YVONNE: Je suis amoureuse de Michel, amoureuse folle. Qui peut empêcher une mère d'être amoureuse folle de son fils?
GEORGES: Ce fils, s'il lui arrive de sentir trop de surveillance et trop d'obstacles... On ne peut pas vivre les uns sur les autres. C'est ce qui m'a poussé dehors et poussé Michel. Lâche la bride. Un jour il te haïra. Il nous haïra.
YVONNE: Vous me demandez l'impossible.' p.145

'YVONNE: Tu dis?
GEORGES: Je dis que nous avons failli tuer ces enfants par égoïsme, et qu'il est urgent de les faire revivre, voilà ce que je dis.' p.143

'MADELEINE: Elle doit être adorable, ta mère. Quel dommage que je crève de peur!' p.90

'Denn solange ich Bücher an meiner Seite weiß, werde ich mich niemals ganz alleine fühlen.' p.187