I wouldn't call my work Modernist. I would rust if I try to think about labels. I'd feel like the Tin Man in 'The Wizard of Oz. Ali Smith More Quotes by Ali Smith More Quotes From Ali Smith It is important to know the stories and histories of things, even if all we know is that we don't know. Ali Smith important stories knows Words are like untying a corset - you can move into this great space with them. Ali Smith corsets space moving All we need to do, reader or writer, from first line to final page, is be as open as a book, and be alive to the life in language - on all its levels. Ali Smith finals book needs It's about the connecting force from form to form. It's the toe bone connecting to the shoulder bone. It's the bacterial kick of life force, something growing out of nothing, forming itself out of something else. Form never stops. And form is always environmental. Ali Smith environmental toes growing A game one of my sisters will play with me in my first year of being alive is called Good Baby, Bad Baby. This consists of being told I am a good baby until I smile and laugh, then being told I am a bad baby until I burst into tears. This training will stand me in good stead all through my life. Ali Smith games play baby As for Aliki - if you were to stand in the middle of Rome and say the name Sophia Loren, or Paris and say the name Catherine Deneuve or Brigitte Bardot, or L.A. and the name Marilyn Monroe, it's like standing in Athens, or anywhere in wide-flung Greece, and saying Aliki Vougiouklaki. A huge star - and so little known elsewhere in the world. Ali Smith paris stars names There is a kind of poetry, bad and good, in evrything, everywhere we look. Ali Smith kind looks In the end, will truth matter? Of course truth will matter. Truth isn't relative. But there's going to be a great sacrifice on the way to getting truth to matter to us again, to finding out why it does, and God knows what shape that sacrifice will take. Ali Smith great sacrifice truth god I grew up completely alone but with all the comforts of knowing I had a cushioning family structure around me - and yet I could free myself from it. Ali Smith alone myself me family I really like jackets and tend to buy them to the detriment of my need of all the other items. Ali Smith buy need like jackets I'm quite good on the harmonica and can get a tune out of most musical instruments, so long as the tune is 'Oh Susannah.' Ali Smith out get good long What I know most is that the difference between us is what makes us interesting and attractive and problematic and exciting and vital to each other. Give me difference over indifference any day. Ali Smith difference day know me How could 30 years be the blink-of-the-eye it felt? It was the difference between black-and-white footage of the Second World War and David Bowie on 'Top of the Pops' singing 'Life on Mars.' Ali Smith singing war life world It's the word 'artful'; it's such a great word, with its dark and its light side, its art and its cunning, the craft and the crafty of it - I've been preoccupied with the word 'artful' and the twin notions of 'cornucopia' and 'pickpocket' it suggests for quite some time. Ali Smith great light time art