Stig Dagerman

“It may be true that death is a large empty hole and that sorrow is knowing just how deep the hole is, but it is only true when one is sober. If one has snaps one can fill up the hole with all the beautiful thoughts one can think of, and all the fine words one can hit on. One can fill it right up to the brink, and then put a stone there.He loved her because she loved him, and if one is loved, one loves in return, otherwise one is a fool. (p. 30)”

“I am still fairly convinced that as a theory it's true enough: to live, really only means to put off one's suicide from day to day. You have probably had some experience of this too; even if you are not able to put it into words, you must have been subconsciously aware of it. (p. 181)”

“Do you think I'm seventeen, he remembered she had said. Not very loudly, but she had said it, though she was not annoyed any more. It had sounded more as though she was sorry she was no longer seventeen. (p. 187)”

“They knew that if they let each other go they were lost, but if they went on holding each other they were also lost. (p. 188)”

“It made her pure, and those we love must be pure, otherwise we can't love them. But loving a person is also making her pure. (p. 189)”

“They talked quietly, lying on their backs and letting the words float up to the ceiling as though they were talking to themselves. By reason of their calmness they could tell each other everything without shame, without its sounding like a confession. Nor were they surprised at what they found out about each other. (p. 191)”

“Browsing in books as lovers do, they were only being considerate, because their tenderness to each other made them tender towards others as well. (p. 192)”

“I am sufficiently intelligent to be able to differentiate between real falsehood, which is aimed at hurting people, and a wise moderation of so-called truth, whose only object is to simplify life for all concerned. (p. 198)”

“I come to understand what purity is: it means to feel something so wholeheartedly that it shrivels up all doubts, all cowardice and all considerations within one. (p. 199)”

“All my life I have, more of less consciously, sought an alternative way of life to his, one which is purer, one which is more intense and pays less regard to others, which is more exacting, which burns more dangerously, which gives one everything except a flabby happiness. (p. 200)”

“When you're called up you don't need many personal belongings — not when you love either. (p. 203)”

“A little remorse they felt too in front of those who knew nothing, but it made their memories all the sweeter, for remorse is the best spice of all. (p. 243)”

“To die is to become like a child, at last one knows nothing, nothing of death and nothing of life, only that all distances are equally long and all words unintelligible but beautiful. (p. 251)”

“In the land of small dogs we are all card-sharpers, we do everything in fun: in fun we feed all the small dogs with the crumbs of our feeling; in fun we make out we love every little dog we meet, and no one therefore can love properly in the land of small dogs; there is nothing genuine. Not even falsehood is genuine. (p. 257)”

“The only current happiness is indifference, the only current feelings are the very small ones, the only current thoughts are smaller still. The only beautiful things are small feelings. Commons sense is never beautiful. People can never understand that the only thing which makes the small dogs' position at all bearable is that the big dogs' reason can analyse it. (p. 258)”

“For anyone who feels our of place in the land of small dogs the only thing left is to become a big dog, and the only advantage in being a big dog is that one is not then ashamed of dying. Not even a big dog can help feeling shamed of living, a big dog least of all. (p. 258)”

“The opera-glasses she stole from the bookcase so that each morning she could look through them down into the street in order to make people bigger and bring them close to her in order to feel less lonely. (p. 263)”

“But then comes a time when forgetting isn't possible. And I do mean a particular time when no amount of dreaming, not then and maybe not ever, can change how naked and unimportant we become in our own eyes.”