44
" Vilket korkat jävla idiotland det här var. Alla unga kvinnor drack vatten i sådana mängder att det sprutade ur öronen på dem, de trodde det var 'nyttigt' och 'fräscht', men det enda som hände var att antalet unga inkontinenta i landet sköt rätt upp i höjden. Barn åt fullkornspasta och fullkornsbröd och allsköns märkvärdiga grova rissorter som deras magar inte kunde tillgodogöra sig riktigt, men det spelade ingen roll för det var 'nyttigt', det var 'fräscht', det var 'hälsosamt'. Å, de förväxlade mat med själ, de trodde att de kunde äta sig till att bli bättre människor utan att fatta att mat är en sak, de föreställningar mat väcker något annat. Och sa man det, sa man något i den vägen var man antingen reaktionär eller bara norrman, det vill säga en människa som är tio år efter. "
― Karl Ove Knausgård , Min kamp 2 (Min kamp #2)
45
" Conceptions of humanity changed constantly, conceptions of the world and nature, too, all manner of strange ideas and beliefs emerged and vanished, useful and useless objects were discovered, science penetrated ever deeper into the world’s mysteries, machines grew in number, speeds increased and ever greater areas of old lifestyles were abandoned, but no one dreamed of discarding beer or changing it. Malt, hops, water. Field, meadow, stream. "
― Karl Ove Knausgård , Min kamp 2 (Min kamp #2)
46
" For who brooded over the meaninglessness of life any more? Teenagers. They were the only ones who were preoccupied with existential issues, and as a result there was something puerile and immature about them, and hence it was doubly impossible for adults with their sense of propriety intact to deal with them. However, this is not so strange, for we never feel more strongly and passionately about life than in our teenage years, when we step into the world for the first time, as it were, and all our feelings are new feelings. So there they are, with their big ideas on small orbits, looking this way and that for an opportunity to launch them, as the pressure builds. "
― Karl Ove Knausgård , Min kamp 2 (Min kamp #2)
49
" The age coincidence, which in this case was down to a month, was neither a family nor a genetic matter and the midlife crisis was not a myth: it had begun to hit people around me, and it hit them hard. Some went almost crazy in their despair. For what? For more life. At the age of forty the life you have lived so far, always pro tem, has for the first time become life itself, and this reappraisal swept away all dreams, destroyed all your notions that real life, the one that was meant to be, the great deeds you would perform, was somewhere else. When you were forty you realized it was all here, banal everyday life, fully formed, and it always would be unless you did something. Unless you took one last gamble. "
― Karl Ove Knausgård , Min kamp 2 (Min kamp #2)
51
" ... she continued to hurl abuse at me, it came in one long stream, passers-by sent us looks, but she didn’t care, her fury, which I had always feared, had her in its grip. I felt like asking her to stop, asking her to be nice, I had apologised, and it wasn’t as though I had done anything, there was no connection between our texts and the fact that I had been drinking with a guest from Norway, nor between the fact that I had got drunk and the pregnancy test she was holding in her hand, but she didn’t see it like that, for her this was all the same, she was a romantic, she had a dream about the two of us, about love and our child, and my behaviour smashed that dream, or reminded her that it was a dream. I was a bad person, an irresponsible person, how could I even imagine becoming a father? How could I subject her to this? I walked beside her, burning with shame because people were looking at us, burning with guilt because I had been drinking and burning with terror because, in her unbridled rage, she went straight for me and the person I was. This was humiliating, but for as long as she was in the right, for as long as what she said was true – that this was the day we might find out if we were going to have a child and I had met her off the train drunk – I couldn’t ask her to stop or tell her to go to hell. She was right, or she was within her rights, I would have to bow my head and put up with this.
It struck me that Eirik might be close by and bowed my head even lower, this was almost the worst thought, that someone I knew would see me like this. "
― Karl Ove Knausgård , Min kamp 2 (Min kamp #2)
60
" Falas da tua vontade de te deixares ir e cair. Se eu me deixar ir, não caio nem saio de onde estou. Já estou no fundo. Ninguém está interessado no que escrevo. Ninguém está interessado no que penso. Ninguém me convida seja para onde for. Tenho de abrir caminho a cada passo, não vês? Quando entro numa sala cheia de gente, tenho de me esforçar por ser interessante. Não preexisto, como tu, não tenho nome, tenho de criar tudo a todo o momento a partir do zero. Estou no fundo de um buraco no chão e ponho-me a fritar por um megafone. Pouco importa o que diga, ninguém me escuta. E tu sabes como tudo o que digo sobre o lado de fora contém uma crítica ao lado de dentro. O que é precisamente característico de um obstinado. De um tipo amargo e quezilento. Tenho quase quarenta anos e não tenho nada do que quis ter. Tu dizes que sou brilhante e único, e talvez seja verdade, mas de que me serve? Tu tens tudo o que quiseste e a possibilidade de renunciar a isso, de o pôr de lado. Mas eu não posso. Tenho de tentar entrar. passei vinte anos a esforçar-me. O livro em que estou a trabalhar vai levar pelo menos mais três anos a ser feito. Sinto que as pessoas à minha volta começam já a deixar de acreditar e, portanto, a desinteressar-se. Sou cada vez mais como um louco que se recusa a abandonar a loucura do seu projecto. "
― Karl Ove Knausgård , Min kamp 2 (Min kamp #2)
