What, the Great War? in which your great-grandfather, who happened to be my grandfather, was gassed in the trenches not once, but twice? Which meant he and your great-grandmother were very poor, because he was too ill to work and died young? And meant I inherited his weak lungs? Not relevant to us? her mother says. And then the break-up of the Balkans, and the start of the territorial trouble in the Middle East between the Israelis and the Palestinians, and the civil unrest in Ireland, and the shifts of power in Russia, and the power shifts in the Ottoman empire, and the bankruptcy, economic catastrophe and social unrest in Germany, all of which played a huge part in the rise of Fascism and in the bringing about of another war in which, as it happens, your own grandmother and grandfather--who happened to be my mother and father--both fought when they were just two or three years older than you? Not relevant? To us?
AS
Author
Ali Smith
/ali-smith-quotes-and-sayings
38
Quotes
9
Works
Author Summary
About Ali Smith on QuoteMust
Ali Smith currently has 38 indexed quotes and 9 linked works on QuoteMust. This page is the canonical destination for that author archive.
Works
Books and titles linked to this author
Artful
Autumn
Girl Meets Boy
Girl Meets Boy: The Myth of Iphis
How to Be Both
Public Library and Other Stories
The Accidental
The Whole Story and Other Stories
There but for the
Quotes