Home > Author > Hjalmar Söderberg
1 " We know so little about one another. We embrace a shadow and love a dream. "
― Hjalmar Söderberg , Doctor Glas
2 " In the days when I was ambitious I worked out a very pretty little plan for conquering the whole earth and rearranging things as they ought to be; and when, in the end, everything became so good it almost began to be boring, then I was going to stuff my pockets with as much money as I could lay hands on and creep away, vanish in some cosmopolis and sit at a corner cafe and drink absinthe and enjoy seeing how everything went to the devil as soon as I wasn't on the scene any more. "
3 " I believe in the lust of the flesh and the incurable desolation of the soul. "
― Hjalmar Söderberg , Gertrud
4 " For youth, the moon is a promise of all those tremendous things which await it, for older people a memento that the promise was never kept, a reminder of all that broke and went to pieces...And what is moonshine? Secondhand sunshine. Diluted, counterfeit. "
5 " He was strict and hard and had perfectly clear and definite ideas about duty, where the others were concerned. For oneself one can always find circumstances that alter cases "
― Hjalmar Söderberg
6 " A pregnant woman is a frightful object. A new-born child is loathsome. A deathbed rarely makes so horrible an impression as childbirth, that terrible symphony of screams and filth and blood. "
7 " Look at your world from your own point of view, not from some point in space. Modestly measure with your own yardstick, after your own status, your own predicament, the status and the predicament of man the earthdweller. Then life is large enough and a thing of consequence; and night endless, deep. "
8 " One wants to be loved, in lack thereof feared, in lack thereof loathed and despised. One wants to instil some sort of emotion in people. The soul trembles before emptiness and desires contact at any price. "
9 " My loneliness I have borne about with me through the crowd as a snail his house. For some individuals solitude isn’t a circumstance they’ve tumbled into by chance, but a trait, of character. "
10 " Men naturen har förlänat människan med den lyckliga förmågan att glömma. Annars skulle hon inte stå ut med livet "
― Hjalmar Söderberg , Den allvarsamma leken
11 " People want to be loved; failing that admired; failing that feared; failing that hated and despised. They want to evoke some sort of sentiment. The soul shudders before oblivion and seeks connection at any price. "
12 " Man vill bli älskad, i brist därpå beundrad, i brist därpå fruktad, i brist därpå avskydd och föraktad. Man vill ingiva människorna något slags känsla. Själen ryser för tomrummet och vill kontakt till vad pris som helst. "
13 " We want to be loved; failing that, admired; failing that, feared; failing that, hated and despised. At all costs we want to stir up some sort of feeling in others. Our soul abhors a vacuum. At all costs it longs for contact. "
14 " Nothing so reduces and drags down a human being as the consciousness of not being loved. "
15 " Liv, jag förstår dig inte. Men jag säger inte att det är ditt fel. Jag håller det mera troligt jag är en vanartig son än att du är en ovärdig mor. "
16 " Det fattades bara, det fattades bara att jag skulle gå genom livet utan att nånsin ha varit din. "
17 " Thought is an acid, eating us away. At first we imagine it will only eat into that which is rotten and sick and must be removed. But thought thinks otherwise. It eats blindly. It begins with the prey you most gladly throw to it - but don't imagine it will be content with that! It doesn't stop until it has gnawed away the last thing you hold dear. "
18 " We want everything, we want to be everything. We want to experience all the joys of good fortune and the full depths of suffering. We want the excitement of action and the calm of observation. We want the silence of the desert as well as the noise of the forum. Simultaneously we want to be the hermit´s thought and the voice of the people; we want to be both melody and harmony. Simultaneously! How could this be possible? "
19 " I’ve borne my isolation with me through the crowd as the snail bears its house. For some people isolation isn’t a circumstance in which they find themselves, it’s an innate characteristic. "
20 " There are people who have no talent for happiness and who know this with painful, implacable clarity. Such people don’t seek happiness, merely to bring some sort of form and style to their unhappiness. "
