93 Quotes by Peter Høeg

I feel the same way about solitude as some people feel about the blessing of the church. It’s the light of grace for me. I never close my door behind me without the awareness that I am carrying out an act of mercy toward myself.

There is one way to understand another culture. Living it. Move into it, ask to be tolerated as a guest, learn the language.

I’ve had the privilege of learning foreign languages. Instead of merely speaking a watered-down form of my mother tongue, like most people, I’m also helpless in two or three other languages.

We all try to camouflage the monotony, But it takes a lot of energy. To insist on being special all the time. When we’re so much like one another anyway. Our triumphs are the same. Our pain. Try for a moment to feel what relief there is in the ordinary.

Under certain circumstances the fateful decisions in life, sometimes even in matters of life and death, are made with an almost indifferent ease. While the little things-for instance, the way people hang on to what is over-seem so important.

I’m no expert on types of cars. As far as i’m concerned, you could send all the cars in the world through a compactor and shoot them out into the stratosphere and put them in orbit around Mars. Except, of course, the taxis that have to be at my disposal when I need them.

The fear for oneself, that one can do something about. Upon it one can turn the light of awareness. But when one is no longer worrying about oneself, then the fear comes for other people and, after that, for the world. There are no fearless people, only fearless moments.

Confronted with people who have power, and who enjoy using it, I turn into a different person, a baser and meaner one.

I don’t fall in love anymore. Just like I don’t get the mumps.