1
...as long as I felt I had to take some action, I was anguished, and when I gave up all responsibility and stopped trying to do anything at all, I was relatively at peace, even though the earth meanwhile was circling so far below us and we were so high up in a defective airplane that would have trouble landing.Lydia Davis
2
One gains courage from the one in front of her and moves forward a few steps, passing her by just a little. Now the one farthest back gains courage from the one in front and moves forward until she, in turn, is the leader. And so in this way, taking courage from one another, they advance, as a group, towards the strange thing in front of them.Lydia Davis
3
Sometimes the grief was nearby, waiting, just barely held back, and I could ignore it for a while. But at other times it was like a cup that was always full and kept spilling over.Lydia Davis
4
That fall, after the summer when they both died, she and my father, there was a point when I wanted to say to them, All right, you have died, I know that, and you've been dead for a while, we have all absorbed this and we've explored the feelings we had at first, in reaction to it, surprising feelings, some of them, and the feelings we're having now that a few months have gone by--- but now it's time for you to come back. You have been away long enough.Lydia Davis
5
Once she was gone, every memory was suddenly precious, even the bad ones, even the times I was irritated with her, or she was irritated with me. Then it seemed a luxury to be irritated.Lydia Davis
6
I had had a feeling of freedom because of the sudden change in my life. By comparison to what had come before, I felt immensely free. But then, once I became used to that freedom, even small tasks became more difficult. I placed constraints on myself, and filled the hours of the day. Or perhaps it was even more complicated than that. Sometimes I did exactly what I wanted to do all day– I lay on the sofa and read a book, or I typed up an old diary–and then the most terrifying sort of despair would descend on me: the very freedom I was enjoying seemed to say that what I did in my day was arbitrary, and that therefore my whole life and how I spent it was arbitrary.Lydia Davis
7
This dull, difficult novel I have brought with me on my trip– I keep trying to read it. I have gone back to it so many times, each time dreading it and each time finding it no better than the last time, that by now it has become something of an old friend. My old friend the bad novel.Lydia Davis
8
If they finally move, is it because they are warm enough, or is it that they are stiff, or bored?Lydia Davis
9
Just as it is hard for us, in our garden, to stop weeding, because there is always another weed there in front of us, it may be hard for her to stop grazing, because there are always a few more shoots of fresh grass just ahead of her.Lydia Davis
10
She is bending over her child. She can’t leave her. Thechild is laid out in state on a table. She wants to take one more photograph of the child, probably the last. In life, the child would never sit still for a photograph. She says to herself, “I’m going to get the camera, ” as if saying to the child, “Don’t move.Lydia Davis
11
It is the lowered head that makes her seem less noble than, say, a horse, or a deer surprised in the woods. More exactly, it is her lowered head and neck. As she stands still, the top of her head is level with her back, or even a little lower, and so she seems to be hanging her head in discouragement, embarrassment, or shame. There is at least a suggestion of humility and dullness about her. But all these suggestions are false.Lydia Davis
12
They do sometimes protest... At these times, she sounds authoritative. But she has no authority.Lydia Davis
13
She knows she is in Chicago. But she does not yet realize that she is in Illinois.Lydia Davis