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“Writing is the fruit of life. Life isn't the fruit of writing.”

“You might get an A in your maths. But life is blo­ody dif­fe­rent. You can’t expect life to be an A all the time.”

“Sometimes you make choices in life and sometimes choices make you”

“Life is around you and in you.
Let the sunshine in.”

“Life is too short not to love the shit out of yourself.”

“It is a great thing to start life with a small number of really good books which are your very own.”

“ One thing she knew was that no matter what happened to you, no matter how bad life got, happiness – true happiness – was a state of mind.”

“Hear me, Niah. Hear me, Mother. This flesh your feast. This blood your wine. This gift, this life, this end, our offering to you. Hold him close.”

“The good horror tale will dance it's way to the center of your life and find the secret door to the room you believed no one but you knew of.”

“The monomyth is a single great circle of tales marking out each stage in the hero's life: from birth to death; then on again, through resurrection and rebirth.”

“(...) I share almost ninety-nine per cent of my genes with a chimpanzee - and our longevity is virtually the same - but I don't think you have an inkling of how much more I comprehend, and yet I know I must tear myself away from it. For example, I have a good grasp of just how infinitely great outer space is and how it's divided into galaxies and clusters of galaxies, spirals and lone stars, and that there are healthy stars and febrile red giants, white dwarfs and neutron stars, planets ans asteroids. I know everything about the sun and moon, about the evolution of life on earth, about the Pharaohs and the Chinese dynasties, the countries of the world and their peoples as presently constituted, not to mention all the studying I've done on plants and animals, canals and lakes, rivers and mountain passes. Without even a pause for thought I can tell you the names of several hundred cities, I can tell you the names of nearly all the countries in the world, and I know the approximate populations of every one. I have a knowledge of the historical background of the different cultures, their religion and mythology, and to a certain extent also the history of their languages, in particular etymological relationships, especially within the Indo-European family of languages, but I can certainly reel off a goodly number of expressions from the Semitic language too, and the same from Chinese and Japanese, not to mention all the topographical and personal names I know. In addition, I'm acquainted with several hundred individuals personally, and just from my own small country I could, at the drop of a hat, supply you with several thousand names of loving fellow countrymen whom I know something about - fairly extensive biographical knowledge in some cases. And I needn't confine myself to Norwegians, we're living more and more in a global village, and soon the village square will cover the entire galaxy. On another level, there are all the people I'm genuinely fond of, although it isn't just people one gets attached to, but places as well: just think of the all the places I know like the back of my hand, and where I can tell if someone's gone chopped down a bush or moved a stone. Then there are books, especially all those that have taught me so much about the biosphere and outer space, but also literary works, and through them all the imaginary people whose lives I've come to know and who, at times, have meant a great deal to me. And then I couldn't live without music, and I'm very eclectic, everything from folk music and Renaissance music to Schonberg and Penderecki, but I have to admit, and this has a bearing on the very perspective we're trying to gain, I have to admit to having a particular penchant for romantic music, and this, don't forget, can also be found amongst the works of Bach and Gluck, not to mention Albinoni. But romantic music has existed in every age, and even Plato warned against it because he believed that melancholy could actually weaken the state, and it's patently clear when you get to Puccini and Mahler that music has become a direct expression of what I'm trying to get you to comprehend, that life is too short and that the way human beings are fashioned means they must take leave of far too much. If you've heard Mahler's Abschied from Das Lied von the Erde you'll know what I mean. Hopefully you'll have understood that it's the farewell itself I'm referring to, the actual leave- taking, and that this takes place in the self-same organ where everything I'm saying goodbye to is stored.”

“Gdyś przyszła, dzień na świecie zagościł,
Zorze przydały Ci jasności.
Słońca jaśnieją jak Twe lice,
Zazdrosne kryją się księżyce.
Kiedy rozchylasz swe zasłony,
Korzy się przed Tobą świat zdumiony,
A gdy w pokoju znikasz swoim,
Ziemia się łzami rosy poi.”

“Someone who expresses a feeling along the lines of "I don't read fantasy or go to any of those movies, none of those is real". [...] They simply can't lift the weight of fantasy. The muscles of the imagination have grown too weak.”