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Tarjei Vesaas QUOTES

Tarjei Vesaas QUOTES

1 " What you want most you push away from you.
You want more than you care to admit. "

― Tarjei Vesaas , The Bridges

2 " The world was full of forces you couldn't fight against which suddenly loomed up and aimed a crushing blow at you. "

― Tarjei Vesaas , The Birds

3 " Almost nothing need be said when you have eyes. "

― Tarjei Vesaas , The Boat in the Evening

4 " His face was neither handsome nor anything else. It just was. "

― Tarjei Vesaas , The Birds

5 " Bewilderment increases in the presence of the mirrors. "

― Tarjei Vesaas , The Boat in the Evening

6 " What can you do when everyone around you is strong and clever? "

― Tarjei Vesaas , The Birds

7 " Four eyes full of gleams and radiance beneath their lashes, filling the looking-glass. Questions shooting out and then hiding again. I don't know: Gleams and radiance, gleaming from you to me, from me to you, and from me to you alone—into the mirror and out again, and never an answer about what this is, never an explanation. "

― Tarjei Vesaas , The Ice Palace

8 " Kanske vi träffas när du blivit vuxen. Gå nu och lägg dig och sov. "

― Tarjei Vesaas , Spring Night

9 " The pine needles stretch their tongues and sing an unfamiliar nocturnal song. Each tongue is so small that it cannot be heard; together the sound is so deep and powerful that it could level the hills if it wished. "

― Tarjei Vesaas , The Ice Palace

10 " I like the modern form. Anyone who absolutely has to understand everything he sees misses a lot. It's not always true that "obscure words come from obscure thoughts. "

― Tarjei Vesaas , Through Naked Branches: Selected Poems of Tarjei Vesaas

11 " This gave him another opportunity to use one of those words that hung before him, shining and alluring. Far away in the distance there were more of them, dangerously sharp. Words that were not for him, but which he used all the same on the sly, and which had an exciting flavour and gave him a tingling feeling in the head. They were a little dangerous, all of them. "

― Tarjei Vesaas , The Birds

12 " The darkness at the sides of the road. It possesses neither form nor name, but whoever passes here knows when it comes out and follows after and sends shudders like rippling streams down his back. "

― Tarjei Vesaas , The Ice Palace

13 " Draum om nedsnødde bruer

Med vi står fell snøen tettare.

Kåpearmen din blir kvit.

Kåpearmen min blir kvit.

Dei går mellom oss som

nedsnødde bruer.

Men nedsnødde bruer er frosne.

Inni her er det levande varmt.

Varm under snøen er armen din ei

sæl vekt på min.

Det snør og snør

på stille bruer.

Bruer ingen veit om. "

― Tarjei Vesaas , The Ice Palace

14 " They were floating, almost at one with the darkness, reflecting no light. Their footsteps could not be heard. But their breathing could, and perhaps the heart. They mingled with other almost inaudible nocturnal stirrings, like a small vibration in long wires. "

― Tarjei Vesaas , The Ice Palace

15 " Fear can resemble a crackling sound in a frozen ditch. "

― Tarjei Vesaas , The Ice Palace

16 " Where the Flame was burning

By the long grey road
there is ash after a fire gone out
and signs of departure
in dust and heat.

That is all.
But the flame that burned
in the circle of the travellers
whirled only before the eye
in unextinguished longing.

They were travelling for a dream
and could give all,
and must go on in their searchings
and their unease,
and the bonfire burned on
in every edge of sight,
whilst new searchers dug in the ashes
and in the ground under the ashes,
and it is dream
that is happiness
for those journeying. "

― Tarjei Vesaas , The Boat in the Evening

17 " Words, words.
No more words now.
Here is my thirsting hand. "

― Tarjei Vesaas , The Boat in the Evening

18 " Lovnad i djupaste snøen frå Siss til Unn:
Det lovar eg deg at eg ikkje vil tenke på noko anna enn deg.
Tenke på alt eg veit om deg. Tenke på deg heime og på skolen, og på
skolevegen. Tenke på deg heile dagen, og dersom eg vaknar om natta. "

― Tarjei Vesaas , The Ice Palace

19 " You no longer know,
amid all this,
if what hurt
still matters—

— Tarjei Vesaas, from “Between Blue Shadows,” Through Naked Branches: Selected Poems of Tarjei Vesaas (Black Widow Press, 2018;first published 2000) "

― Tarjei Vesaas , Through Naked Branches: Selected Poems of Tarjei Vesaas

20 " Fire auge med glimt og strålar under vippene. Heile spegelglaset fullt. Spørsmål som skyt fram og gøymer seg att. Eg veit ikkje: Glimt og strålar, glimt frå deg til meg, frå meg til deg, og frå meg til deg åleine - inn i glaset og tilbake, og aldri noko svar på kva dette er, aldri noko løysning. Dei raude putande leppene dine, nei det er mine, så likt! Håret på same måten, og glimt og strålar. Det er oss! Vi kan ikkje gjera noko med det, det er som frå ei anna verd. Biletet byrjar å svive, flyt ut til kantane, samlar seg, nei samlar seg ikkje. Det er ein munn som smiler. Ein munn frå ei anna verd. Nei det er ingen munn, det er ikkje noko smil, det er noko ingen veit - det er berre oppspana augevipper over glimt og strålar. "

― Tarjei Vesaas , The Ice Palace