“I try to write about small insignificant things. I try to find out if it’s possible to say anything about them. And I almost always do if I sit down and write about something. There is something in that thing that I can write about. It’s very much like a rehearsal. An exercise, in a way.” IfsWayWritingTryingI CanExerciseDown AndSay AnythingInsignificantRehearsalInsignificant Things Author:Karl Ove Knausgard
“I think there are a lot of similarities between writing and music. Music is much more direct and much more emotional and that's the level I want to be at when I'm writing. Writing is much more intellectual and indirect and abstract, in a way.” ThinkingWayWantWritingLevelsEmotionalMusic IsIntellectualDirectAbstractSimilarityIndirect Author:Karl Ove Knausgard
“I’m not interested in the words or the meaning of the words. I’m interested in disappearing in it completely, to not be aware of yourself at all. That’s the way music works for me. It’s purely emotional. It goes straight to the heart. There are no explanations. That’s just it.” WayHeartEmotionalDisappearExplanationNot Interested Author:Karl Ove Knausgard
“I never read the translation before publication. The most important things for me is that the emotion is captured in such a way that the feelings that are in the original are there, much more than the details, if they are right or wrong.” IfsWayImportantFeelingsEmotionOriginalsImportant ThingsDetailsTranslationsCapturedPublication Author:Karl Ove Knausgard
“The way we deny death says something about how we live our lives, doesn't it? At least in Sweden or Scandinavia, you don't have to search further back in time than maybe three generations to find another way to relate to death. People then had a different, closer relationship with death; at least it was like that in the countryside.” PeopleWayDifferentThreeOur LivesGenerationsDenyRelateAnother WayCountrysideSwedenBack In TimeThree GenerationsScandinavia Author:Karl Ove Knausgard
“We live in the best of worlds. But still, it's like we've lost something on the way to here: a sense of life. I can't know for sure, I might be the only one who's lost it. Maybe everybody else is living the now, thinking they're having it well. Anyhow, that motivated me to write the books.” ThinkingKnowsWorldWayWritingWellsStillsI CanBookMightLostMotivated Author:Karl Ove Knausgard
“When I look back at what I've written and try to explain it, it doesn't help, but it helps to be in a process of writing. It's the same thing with reading - you lose yourself when you read as well. When I was younger I used literature that way, it was just escapism, a tool to run away from things.” WayWritingTryingWellsLooksHelpingRunningUsedReadingLiteratureProcessLosesWrittenToolsRunning AwayEscapismLosing Yourself Author:Karl Ove Knausgard
“And it's a disquieting thought that not even the past is done with, even that continues to change, as if in reality there is only one time, for everything, one time for every purpose under heaven. One single second, one single landscape, in which what happens activates and deactivates what has already happened in endless chain reactions, like the processes that take place in the brain, perhaps, where cells suddenly bloom and die away, all according to the way the winds of consciousness are blowing.” IfsWayDoneRealityHappensPastPurposeDiesHeavenProcessBrainConsciousnessHappenedWindEndlessReactionsChainsCellsLandscapeOne TimeActivateChain Reactions Author:Karl Ove Knausgard
