“Writing was a defeat, it was a humiliation, it was coming face-to-face with yourself and seeing you weren't good enough.” — Karl Ove Knausgård Copy Share Image
“The only thing I have learned from life is to endure it, never to question it, and to burn up the longing… — Karl Ove Knausgård Copy Share Image
“Writing isn't black magic. You just have to come up with an idea...” — Karl Ove Knausgård Copy Share Image
When I was younger, I wondered if it was possible to be a good person and a writer. — Karl Ove Knausgard Copy Share Image
Having a writer in the family is a curse - for the family. I do feel more or less guilty when I'm… — Karl Ove Knausgard Copy Share Image
I have some friends, most of them are writers or editors, whose recommendations I trust blindly. There are some critics, too, whom… — Karl Ove Knausgard Copy Share Image
National identity is a motion. It's something you're inside, you don't get what's happening, you can't see it from above. And that's… — Karl Ove Knausgard Copy Share Image
The strange thing about writing is that it's so easy to write a novel. It is really easy. But it's getting there… — Karl Ove Knausgard Copy Share Image
I don't talk about feelings, but I write a lot about feelings. Reading, that's feminine; writing, that's feminine. It is insane -… — Karl Ove Knausgard Copy Share Image
If you are disappearing from yourself, but you're still writing, then there is a kind of activity of thinking going on, which… — Karl Ove Knausgard Copy Share Image
“Writing is drawing the essence of what we know out of the shadows. That is what writing is about. Not what happens… — Karl Ove Knausgård Copy Share Image
In my experience, when you're writing, you want the truth, and you don't want to be apologetic in any way. But there… — Karl Ove Knausgard Copy Share Image
Shameless actually good since it gives a kind of freedom. We consider the old, functionless shame destructive. Today, if you have a… — Karl Ove Knausgard Copy Share Image
In modern novels I try to not let myself get away and to be here, and that's why I write about my… — Karl Ove Knausgard Copy Share Image
When I started out on 'Min Kamp', I was so extremely frustrated over my life and my writing. I wanted to write… — Karl Ove Knausgard Copy Share Image
When you use the form of a novel, and you say 'I,' you are also saying 'I' for someone else. When you… — Karl Ove Knausgard Copy Share Image
“In the mist, in the darkness of the forest, in the dewdrops on the spruce needles. In the whales that swam in… — Karl Ove Knausgård Copy Share Image
Tarjei Vesaas has written the best Norwegian novel ever, 'The Birds' - it is absolutely wonderful: the prose is so simple and… — Karl Ove Knausgard Copy Share Image
“I was a wannabe who was actually unable to write because I had nothing to say, who wasn’t honest enough with himself… — Karl Ove Knausgård Copy Share Image
We live in the best of worlds. But still, it's like we've lost something on the way to here: a sense of… — Karl Ove Knausgard Copy Share Image
I try to write about small insignificant things. I try to find out if it's possible to say anything about them. And… — Karl Ove Knausgard Copy Share Image
“We were nobodies, two young lit. students chatting away in a rickety old house in a small town at the edge of… — Karl Ove Knausgård Copy Share Image
“Modernist literature with all its vast apparatus was an instrument, a form of perception, and once absorbed, the insights it brought could… — Karl Ove Knausgård Copy Share Image
Knut Hamsun's writing is magical. His sentences are glowing; he could write about anything and make it alive. Of contemporary writers, Thure… — Karl Ove Knausgard Copy Share Image
“Academic writing was actually about hiding what you didn’t know. There was a language, a technique, and I had mastered it. In… — Karl Ove Knausgård Copy Share Image
When I write something, I can't remember in the end if this is a memory or if it's not - I'm talking… — Karl Ove Knausgard Copy Share Image
“For a writer it was perhaps most important not to write, but to read. Read as much as you can because in… — Karl Ove Knausgård Copy Share Image
I think there are a lot of similarities between writing and music. Music is much more direct and much more emotional and… — Karl Ove Knausgard Copy Share Image
“The only thing I have learned from life is to endure it, never to question it, and to burn up the longing… — Karl Ove Knausgård Copy Share Image
You don't think when you play music, you just try to play and be in it. It is the same for me… — Karl Ove Knausgard Copy Share Image
When I look back at what I've written and try to explain it, it doesn't help, but it helps to be in… — Karl Ove Knausgard Copy Share Image
When I wrote my fictional novels, they always had a starting point of something real. Those images that are not real are exactly the… — Karl Ove Knausgard Copy Share
“When I look at a beautiful painting I have tears in my eyes, but not when I look at my children. That does not… — Karl Ove Knausgård Copy Share
“I was a wannabe who was actually unable to write because I had nothing to say, who wasn’t honest enough with himself to draw… — Karl Ove Knausgård Copy Share
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… — Karl Ove Knausgard Copy Share
A problem with my novels is that they, from the start, have been infantile and incredibly childish. There are childishness, stupidity, lack of wisdom,… — Karl Ove Knausgard Copy Share
In modern novels I try to not let myself get away and to be here, and that's why I write about my life and… — Karl Ove Knausgard Copy Share
“Writing isn't black magic. You just have to come up with an idea...” — Karl Ove Knausgård Copy Share
“It was a fantastic feeling, but it left me restless because the most important thing in it was the longing, for what was going… — Karl Ove Knausgård Copy Share
“the past is now barely present in my thoughts. I believe the main reason for that is our children, since life with them in… — Karl Ove Knausgård Copy Share
“I loved it, I loved the feeling, it was my favorite feeling, but it never led to anything good, and the day after or… — Karl Ove Knausgård Copy Share
“Actually there were only two forms of existence, I reflected: one that was tied to a place and one that wasn't. Both had always… — Karl Ove Knausgård Copy Share
“And art has come to be a spectator of itself, the way it reacts, what newspapers write about it; the artist is a performer.… — Karl Ove Knausgård Copy Share
'My Struggle' came from a place of questioning and feelings of inauthenticity and frustration, and almost all of that is gone. — Karl Ove Knausgard Copy Share
In 'Min Kamp,' I wanted to see how far it was possible to take realism before it would be impossible to read. — Karl Ove Knausgard Copy Share
