Karl Ove Knausgard

“For the heart, life is simple: it beats for as long as it can. Then it stops.”

— Karl Ove Knausgård

I have a longing for fiction - to try to believe in it and to disappear into it.

— Karl Ove Knausgard

Saying what you believe others want to hear is, of course, a form of lying.

— Karl Ove Knausgard

“The world is material. We are always in a certain place. Now I am here.”

— Karl Ove Knausgård

I have never been interested in presenting myself.

— Karl Ove Knausgard

“Writing isn't black magic. You just have to come up with an idea...”

— Karl Ove Knausgård

When I was younger, I wondered if it was possible to be a good person and a writer.

— Karl Ove Knausgard

As a person, I'm polite - I want to please.

— Karl Ove Knausgard

On the floor by my bed, there are heaps of books I want to read, books I have to read, and books…

— Karl Ove Knausgard

“Actually there were only two forms of existence, I reflected: one that was tied to a place and one that wasn't. Both…

— Karl Ove Knausgård

In 2008, when I wrote Book 1 and Book 2, the head of the publishing house suggested twelve books - one each…

— Karl Ove Knausgard

Shame tells you when you've gone too far. Then you try if it's okay to go too far. And it might be…

— Karl Ove Knausgard

“There is only one thing children find harder to hold back than tears, and that is joy.”

— Karl Ove Knausgård

“that is what you do when you breathe, you trespass, again and again you trespass on the world.”

— Karl Ove Knausgård

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

“The problem is not so much that the world limits your imagination as your imagination limits the world.”

— Karl Ove Knausgård

“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

“What was the point of all this? Flying all over Norway to read for ten minutes to four people? Talking smugly about…

— Karl Ove Knausgård

When I wrote my first novel - I was nineteen - I did it very quickly. If you write fast, you feel…

— Karl Ove Knausgard

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

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

Those small things, like giving a hug to man, I try to avoid it. Because I can see the situation is coming,…

— Karl Ove Knausgard

“The strange thing about Yngve's nocturnal life was that on occasion he could be heard speaking eastern Norwegian dialect in his sleep.…

— Karl Ove Knausgård

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

“For humans are merely one form among many, which the world produces over and over again, not only in everything that lives…

— Karl Ove Knausgård

And it's a disquieting thought that not even the past is done with, even that continues to change, as if in reality…

— Karl Ove Knausgard

“But Dad was no longer breathing. That was what had happened to him, the connection with the air had been broken, now…

— Karl Ove Knausgård

“An essay course started at the Academy, I wrote about Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, one of the books I was really…

— Karl Ove Knausgård

“Oh, this is the song about the young man who loves a young woman. Has he the right to use such a…

— Karl Ove Knausgård

“Our days are open and transparent, but enveloped too by the faintest membrane of time, almost imperceptible when our gaze passes through…

— Karl Ove Knausgård

“It was a very special feeling to wake up in the morning, all alone in a flat, it was as though emptiness…

— Karl Ove Knausgård

The tree was so old, and stood there so alone, that his childish heart had been filled with compassion; if no one…

— Karl Ove Knausgard

“As your prospective of the world increases, not only is the pain it inflicts on you less but also its meaning. Understanding…

— Karl Ove Knausgård

“Now I saw his lifeless state. And that there was no longer any difference between what once had been my father and…

— Karl Ove Knausgård

“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

“the past is now barely present in my thoughts. I believe the main reason for that is our children, since life with…

— Karl Ove Knausgård

“A lot happens in our everyday life, but it always happens within the same routine, and more than anything else it has…

— Karl Ove Knausgård

“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

“De er ikke nære venner, jeg er ikke god nok til å snakke med folk til å ha nære venner, og så…

— Karl Ove Knausgård

“As your perspective of the world increases not only is the pain it inflicts on you less but also its meaning. Understanding…

— Karl Ove Knausgård