Quotes by Sara Baume

Theres a table with some catalogues and a guest book in the corner; there are artworks. Today, I need so badly to be inspired by them, even though I hate that word: inspiration. It crops up in too many advertisements, politcians speeches, Disney films, its meaning obliterated. I refuse to be inspired in the same insipid way that ad executives and politicians and Hollywood producers suggest I should be. What I need from these works is to be reminded of why I used to care about art—so much that Id try and make it for myself.

After college, I started working in the gallery and found myself surrounded by a whole new set of people who had not yet grown accustomed to my antisocial tendencies, who had not yet learned to expect me to say no, and stopped asking. I was invited to go drinking and dancing again, and so, I tried.

No matter how far I try to travel from people, people always appear. Either they follow me, or theyre already there, and I followed them, unwittingly.

. . . buzzed up by the knowledge that none of my family knew where I was, who I was with nor when Id be home again. I didnt even know exactly who I was with or when Id be home again or where home really was anymore.

In the face of immense tragedy—yet again—unexpected beauty.

How easy to be electrocuted. How fine the line between beauty and peril.

I cant remember the name of the piece, or the artist. Maybe it wasnt even an artwork. Why must I automatically assume that every strange object is a sculpture, that every public display of unorthodox behavior is an act of performance.

I love that an idea can be so powerful it doesnt matter whether Ive seen the artwork for real or not.

How I adored to draw as a child, a teen; all my life before I began to try and shape a career out of it.

Now I wonder if each artwork is in fact utterly inaccessible to everybody but the person to whom it is secretly addressed?

You cant dance to paintings. This is something Ben said, during one of our White Cube conversations, back when I was still wrong about him. He said it even though, at the time, he was desperately trying to be a painter. He said it because it was true and not because it was something either of us wanted to hear.

Art, and sadness, which last forever.

I was wrong to try and impose something of my humanity on you, when being human never did me any good

Blending into the tinctures and textures of the countryside. The tree which falls without any human hearing still falls, as the creatures who die without being found by a human still die.

I see foxes often, but always they are crossing fallow fields in the distance. Gold flecks on faraway expanses of green. Magnetic to the meandering eye. Enigmatic, unreachable.

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.

I decided that if I didnt allow myself to fall asleep, then I wouldnt have to wake up again and despair.

There really isnt much wrong with me, I say, its just that, well, Im not like other people; I dont want the things they want. And this is not right, I mean, in other peoples eyes, and I feel as though they feel they are duty-bound to normalise me, that it isnt okay just to not want the things they want, you know?

So its as if, I say, Im okay in my own bones, but I know that my bones arent living up to other peoples version of what a life should be, and I feel a little crushed by that, to be honest, a little confused as to how to align the two things: to be an acceptable member of society but to be able to be my own bones both at once.

But I know I will do neither; nothing. I have all the time in the world, and yet, I cant be bothered.