Quotes by Norwegian Authors - Page 2

Borders? I have never seen one. But I have heard they exist in the minds of some people.
Thor Heyerdahl
One of the qualities of liberty is that, as long as it is being striven after, it goes on expanding. Therefore, the man who stands in the midst of the struggle and says, "I have it," merely shows by doing so that he has just lost it.
Henrik Ibsen
You see, the point is that the strongest man in the world is he who stands most alone.
Henrik Ibsen
I demolish my bridges behind me ... then there is no choice but forward.
Firdtjof Nansen
Laughter's all the damned thing's fit for.
Henrik Ibsen
All a man can see while looking at the sky are cosmic fossils of thousands and millions of years ago. The only thing an astrologer can predict, is the past.
Jostein Gaarder
Does this mean that religious consumption will increase online? That could be. We do not know yet, but to expect religion to disappear because of online technology is like expecting people to stop listening to music because Napster, Spotify and Wimp are offering us all the music we want online
Torkel Brekke
Let's win this one for the Gipper.
Knute Rockne
Do not forget that prayer is ordained for the purpose of glorifying the name of God. Therefore whether you pray for big things or for little things say to God "If it will glorify Thy name then grant my prayer and help me."
O. Hallesby
And when we give each other Christmas gifts in His name, let us remember that He has given us the sun and the moon and the stars, and the earth with its forests and mountains and oceans--and all that lives and move upon them. He has given us all green things and everything that blossoms and bears fruit and all that we quarrel about and all that we have misused--and to save us from our foolishness, from all our sins, He came down to earth and gave us Himself.
Sigrid Undset
While I think of it, Mr. Werle, junior — don't use that foreign word: ideals. We have the excellent native word: lies.
Henrik Ibsen
I was scared. Not of being dead, that I could not comprehend, to be nothing was impossible to grasp and therefore nothing really to be scared of, but the dying itself I could comprehend, the very instant when you know that now comes what you have always feared, and you suddenly realise that every chance of being the person you really wanted to be, is gone for ever, and the one you were, is the one those around you will remember.
Per Petterson
From my rotting body, flowers shall grow and I am in them, and that is eternity.
Edvard Munch
..he was 'nuts about her', as the parlance of the day had it, as if it were generally recognised that love and madness are adjoining rooms with extremely porous walls.
Jan Kjærstad
What you want most you push away from you.You want more than you care to admit.
Tarjei Vesaas
Had the world been different, in my opinion, without mountains and oceans, plains and seas, deserts and forests, and consisted of something else, inconceivable to us, as we don't know anything other than this, we would also have found it beautiful. A world with gloes and raies, evanbillits and conulames, for example, or ibitera, proluffs, and lopsits, whatever they might be, we would have sung their praises because that is the way we are, we extol the world and love it although it's not necessary, the world is the world, it's all we have.
Karl Ove Knausgård
The of sitting a telescope in space was obviously not to get closer to the stars and planets the telescope was to study. That would have been about as daft as standing on tip-toe to get a better picture of the craters on the moon. The whole idea of a space telescope is to study space from a point outside the earth' atmosphere that gives that impression, in roughly the same way the ripping surface of a lake can give the impression that the stones beneath are wavy and indistinct. Or the reverse: from the bottom of a swimming pool it's not easy to see what's happening above the surface.
Jostein Gaarder
I am learning that if I just go on accepting the framework for life that others have given me if I fail to make my own choices the reason for my life will be missing. I will be unable to recognize that which I have the power to change.
Liv Ullmann
God isn't here. God doesn't even know about this place
Johan Harstad
An action made by an unwitting man, shall not define, nor justify a common thought or interpretation.
Even Engesland
There are times where you need to step it up even higher
Erik Bertrand Larssen
We shall never meet, but there is something I want you to know. My time is not the same as your time. Our times are not the same. And do you know what that means? That means that time does not exist. Do you want me to repeat that? There is no time. There is a life and a death. There are people and animals. Our thoughts exist. And the world. The universe, too. But there is no time. You might as well take it easy. Do you feel better now? I feel better. This is going to work out. Have a nice day.
Erlend Loe
In the streets outside everything was still. The hour before five was the only time of day this city slept. In my earlier life, during the twelve years I had lived in Bergen I used to stay up at night as often as I could. I never reflected on this, it was just something I liked and did. It had started as a student ideal, grounded in a notion that in some way night was associated with freedom. Not in itself but as a response to the nine-to-four reality which I, and a couple of others, regarded as middle-class and conformist. We wanted to be free, we stayed up at night. Continuing with this had less to do with freedom than a growing need to be alone. This, I understood now, I shared with my father. In the house where we lived he had a whole studio apartment to himself and he spent more or less every evening there. The night was his.
Karl Ove Knausgård
You tug and strain like a young horse when it's first tied up at the stake, whenever you are tied by your heartstrings.
Sigrid Undset
I am sure my music has a taste of codfish in it.
Edvard Grieg
When we look up at the sky, we are trying to find the way back to ourselves
Jostien Gaarder
I didn't feel lonely until there was something to yearn for. Loneliness and longing are two sides of the same coin.
Jostein Gaarder
But if two people do almost nothing except search for one another, it's hardly surprising if they run across each other by chance.
Jostein Gaarder
An action made by an unwitting man, shall not define, nor justify a common thought and interpretation.
Even Engesland
It is the will of our heavenly Father that we should come to Him freely and confidently and make known our desires to Him just as we would have our children come freely and of their own accord and speak to us about the things they would like to have.
O. Hallesby
He who hasn't experienced a full depression alone and over a long period of time--he is a child.
Jens Bjørneboe
The answer is not relevant to the knowledge of an inquiring mind.
Even Engesland
no one is as they seem, and most of life, apart from honest betrayal, is lies and deceit. And the day we discover we are no different is the day we no longer want to live.
Jo Nesbø
Frugality is one of the most beautiful and joyful words in the English language, and yet one that we are culturally cut off from understanding and enjoying. The consumption society has made us feel that happiness lies in having things, and has failed to teach us the happiness of not having things.
Elise Boulding
I wondered who in this room I would go to if I had problems. Anyone my own age looked silly, immature, unfocused. The older ones seemed too perfect and uptight. I couldn't find anyone I'd confide in. The only person I trusted here in this group, apart from God, was myself.
Hanne Ørstavik
Different people have different duties assigned to them by Nature Nature has given one the power or the desire to do this the other that. Each bird must sing with his own throat.
Henrik Ibsen