25
" De er ikke nære venner, jeg er ikke god nok til å snakke med folk til å ha nære venner, og så er det det at jeg bruker all tid på meg selv, noe folk merker, selvfølgelig, slik at ingen går det siste stykket. Forsøker noen, trekker jeg meg som regel unna. Slik er din far, litt menneskesky, ikke fordi jeg nødvendigvis vil, men fordi det har blitt slik, og fordi det livet, alene forran tastaturet og skjermen er enklere.
Så da vil jeg det vel kanskje egentlig likevel? Det er ingen god kvalitet, ingenting man vil se i et menneske, men det vil bli en del av ditt liv, og jeg tror det er derfor jeg skriver det, som en slags apologi til deg, når du en gang leser dette. For jeg vil jo at du tenker godt om meg da. Og at du tenker godt om oss, denne sommeren vi hadde det så vanskelig. "
― Karl Ove Knausgård , Autumn (Seasons Quartet, #1)
26
" When at the same time vast cloud massifs are hanging motionless in the blue sky out on the horizon, or rain dashes against the windscreen forming its irregular patterns, which a moment later are swept away by the wipers, I can sometimes feel intensely happy. The feeling can get particularly strong in the forest by the sea on these autumn afternoons, in the long straight passage between the trees, leafless and stark, when approaching cars come towards us in the dusk with their shining headlights, their dark panes and gleaming bodies, below the surface of which an archaic fire smoulders. "
― Karl Ove Knausgård , Autumn (Seasons Quartet, #1)
28
" It’s good to be alone, for a few hours to be exempt from all the complicated bonds, all the conflicts, great and small, all the demands and expectations, wills and desires that build up between people, and which after only a short time become so densely intertwined that the room for reflection and for action are both restricted. If everything that stirs between people made a sound, it would be like a chorus, a great murmur of voices would rise from even the faintest glimmer in the eyes. "
― Karl Ove Knausgård , Autumn (Seasons Quartet, #1)
32
" Maybe you take notice of them, maybe not, in the course of a life we gaze into thousands of eyes, most of them slipping by unperceived, but then suddenly there is something there, in those very eyes, something you want and which you would do almost anything to be close to. What is it? For it isn't the pupils you are seeing then, not the irises nor the whites of the eyes. It is the soul, the archaic light of the soul the eyes are filled with, and to gaze into the eyes of the one you love when love is at its most powerful belongs among the highest joys. "
― Karl Ove Knausgård , Autumn (Seasons Quartet, #1)
33
" To someone who has lived for many years, the door is obvious. The house is obvious, the garden is obvious, the sky and the sea are obvious, even the moon, suspended in the night sky and shining brightly above the rooftops, is obvious. The world expresses its being, but we are not listening, and since we are no longer immersed in it, experiencing it as a part of ourselves, it is as if it escapes us. "
― Karl Ove Knausgård , Autumn (Seasons Quartet, #1)