10 Quotes by Knausgaard

this was not the end of the world, actually it was the world.

Who’s that?” Yngve said, nodding discreetly in the direction of a woman. She wore a hat with a veil that concealed her face. “No idea,” I said. “But all self-respecting funerals have a woman no one recognizes.” We laughed. “Well, the danger’s over now,” Yngve said, and we both laughed again.

I was the kind to endure. No one had said you couldn’t become a better person through endurance.

Dostoyevsky has become a teenager’s writer, the issue of nihilism a teenage issue.

All that usually drew my eyes in his direction, for our entire life together, everything he had done, been, and said, that which made up “Dad” and was immanent in him, or in my view of him, whatever his appearance, all that was suddenly gone. He looked like a drunk who had put on a suit. He looked like an alcoholic his family had picked up, cleaned up, and taken along.

Our spirits rose after a few beers, all that lay between us during the day, the silences that could develop from nowhere, the irritation that could set in, the sudden inability to find areas of common interest, even though there were so many, all of that vanished as our spirits soared and we felt the concomitant warmth: we looked at each other and knew who we were.

I was the son of the man who had ruined everything.

Ea m-a strigat de pe verandă, mama ta la telefon, Karl Ove! Am înțeles gravitatea situației, dar asta nu mi-a trezit nicio emoție, am rămas complet rece. (...)Părea să fie un eveniment, ceva la care urma să particip în mod activ, un rol pe care puteam să-l joc - fiul care se întoarce acasă pentru a avea grijă de mama lui. Mi-am închipuit înmormântarea, toată lumea îmi exprima condoleanțe, le părea atât de rău de mine, și m-am gândit la moștenirea pe care mama trebuia s-o lase.

In our world no one had greater status than these workmen; no work seemed more meaningful than theirs. The technical details were of no interest to me, they meant as little as the make of the construction machines. What fascinated me most, apart from the changes in the landscape the workmen wrought, were the manifestations of their private lives that came with them.