24 Quotes by Stig Dagerman

I have no philosophy in which I can move like a fish in water or a bird on the wing. All I have is an endless struggle, every second of my life, between false consolations that only add to my feeling of powerlessness and deepen my despair, and true consolations that bring me momentary freedom. I should probably say the true consolation, because for me only one exists: the one that allows me to know myself as a free human being, within my own boundaries, untouchable.

I think that the more theoretical knowledge you obtain, the more multifarious and kaleidoscopic your view becomes of the reality that lurks behind concepts. This reality is so insatiably rich that a fixed determinant of a concept’s position must simply be an absurdity.

After all, there is little we can do when we’re sitting at the same table and drinking tea with someone we hate. Judas himself could be sitting at our table, and we wouldn’t ask him about Jesus. We would talk to him about the weather.

But where is the root of suffering? He begins talking about the happiness of suffering, about the beauty of suffering. Suffering is not dirty, suffering is not pitiable. No, suffering is great because suffering makes people great... It is impossible to convince him that suffering is something unworthy.

People demanded of those who were suffering their way through the German autumn that they should learn from their misfortune. No one thought that hi her is a very bad teacher.

But so uncaring is life against the man who has killed a child that everything after is too late.