Olivia Sudjic

“It was to do with the glazed look that always comes over me when faced with somebody who has offended or hurt…

— Olivia Sudjic

“I was on the sidewalk, buffering, wondering if it was okay to follow people in real life.”

— Olivia Sudjic

“That night I dreamt about the roses laid at the wrong feet—the feet of the nurse. Each bit of the dream was…

— Olivia Sudjic

“I saw a doctor. I went in case there were any remnants of the summer inside me—sticky, slender fish bones that needed…

— Olivia Sudjic

“I felt the nauseous shiver in my stomach—everything from rage to empathy to morning sickness—that I had grown used to and now…

— Olivia Sudjic

“A neon-pink 3 flickered and instantly disappeared again into the dark. The sight of it on my own device now made me…

— Olivia Sudjic

“I felt my own self-sufficiency, my own Walden Pond, seeping out of me as if I'd sprung a leak. Self soaked into…

— Olivia Sudjic

“ Roses are like kamikaze love pilots. Roses are like suicide love bombers. ”

— Olivia Sudjic

“Waking in the morning, I had to remember grief all over again. It was sunny, a white winter sun, and that made…

— Olivia Sudjic

“I sank back, deeper into the parallel universe I had found.”

— Olivia Sudjic

“But you'd hope anyone would feel sympathy if they actually saw someone face to face, pleading for a chance.”

— Olivia Sudjic

“From watching Silvia, I'd learned that one of the worst things about being ill is that most people find your suffering opaque.…

— Olivia Sudjic

“Begin at the beginning. Know nothing. Tabula rasa. At the same time, part of me wanted to distinguish myself. To let her…

— Olivia Sudjic

“Tokyo was a place you could quite happily exist alone and be self-contained. It seemed to promise that it was better to…

— Olivia Sudjic

“It continues to impress me how fluently Americans, even immigrants like her, speak of their achievements.”

— Olivia Sudjic

“I don't want to alarm anyone, but everywhere we go I see Alec Baldwin. It's like he's following us.”

— Olivia Sudjic

“We had, I felt, bared small pieces of our symmetrical souls to each other, fast, as if playing one of those breathless…

— Olivia Sudjic

“He had deduced also that I was quirky and promised me that he was too.”

— Olivia Sudjic

“Yes, I think he even has a title. He's like son and heir.' I turned her words over in my mind as…

— Olivia Sudjic

“But I do not know the people I am crying for anymore. I don't let myself sympathise—I think it would be wrong.”

— Olivia Sudjic

“But it is difficult to tell whether something is an oppurtunity or a trap when you are put on the spot.”

— Olivia Sudjic

“When he wasn't making quirky jokes about his mother like this—it happened more than once—he mainly spoke at me, about his job…

— Olivia Sudjic

“At first, sending the confession by real mail had felt like a genius device. I would not have to sit by my…

— Olivia Sudjic

“The emotional question became why Susy had rejected me. I was interested in that shift, from actively wanting to actively not wanting.”

— Olivia Sudjic

“Was this what the city would look like when knowledge was no longer enough? When the desire to turn inward, surrendering entirely…

— Olivia Sudjic