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

“The entrepreneurs are only about my age, probably younger, but they don't seem so. Their tailored clothes and unbending hairdos, their clipboards and laser…

— Sara Baume

“Whether or not I want to see him, I do not want him to see me.”

— Sara Baume

“In the days approaching Christmas, she always reminds me of the previous year: 'Jane crocheted you an entire poncho, and all you gave her…

— Sara Baume

“People don't like it when you say real things.”

— Sara Baume

“Though I am naturally curious about people, I'm also naturally uneasy when they are right in front of me; when I am right in…

— Sara Baume

“It happens so seldom; I must catch and keep this slender yearning, a rare beetle in a jam-jar trap. But mustering will is not…

— Sara Baume

“Everything is very nearly over. And so none of the normal rules of behavior apply. And so none of my actions can have consequences.”

— Sara Baume

“We rarely saw each other outside the walls of the gallery, but inside its glaring white spaces, to exorcise the tedium of the tasks…

— Sara Baume

“Why is it only now that I can see how many ordinary things are actually grotesque?”

— Sara Baume

“Sometimes things happen that give me cause to believe I no longer exist. Car park barriers which do not lift when I drive towards…

— Sara Baume

“Only the lighted houses remaining, the lemon blush of their inhabited windows.”

— Sara Baume

“The last time I went out at night in the city was almost a year ago. It began with anxiety, then I was pleasantly…

— Sara Baume

“My phone doesn't ring and the doorbell doesn't either and I begin to wonder whether I am still alive.”

— Sara Baume

“. . . buzzed up by the knowledge that none of my family knew where I was, who I was with nor when I'd…

— Sara Baume

“I never went downstairs to join my housemates around the television. I cooked dinner later than everyone else and carried the plate up to…

— Sara Baume