“The tree was so old, and stood there so alone, that his childish heart...” — Karl Ove Knausgård Quote

“The tree was so old, and stood there so alone, that his childish heart had been filled with compassion; if no one else on the farm gave it a thought, he would at least do his best to, even though he suspected that his child's words and child's deeds didn't make much difference. It had stood there before he was born, and would be standing there after he was dead, but perhaps, even so, it was pleased that he stroked its bark every time he passed, and sometimes, when he was sure he wasn't observed, even pressed his cheek against it.”

“When you use the form of a novel, and you say 'I,' you are also saying 'I' for someone else. When you say 'you,' you are simultaneously in your room writing and in the outside world - you are seeing and being seen seeing, and this creates something slightly strange and foreign in the self.”

“I do think readers should respect my privacy, but I don't get angry when I get personal questions, because I understand why.”

“I don't talk about feelings, but I write a lot about feelings. Reading, that's feminine; writing, that's feminine. It is insane - it's really insane - but it still is in me.”

“In 'Min Kamp,' I wanted to see how far it was possible to take realism before it would be impossible to read.”

“Only now that he had great swathes of time could he begin to have hobbies. This was why art was such an incalculable luxury: it sent out a message saying, "I have time to subcontract all the menial, dull chores out to others; I waste hours in idle contemplation of a piece of cloth covered in spots; I am an art lover; I am time-rich. I can mooch about in a sea of pickled sharks.”

“Every film is a comeback, no matter what I did the last time.”

“Time is not always present, but Presence is always Time.”

“Even a genius cannot completely resist his Zeitgeist, the spirit of his time.”

“Don’t just be a deliverer of yourself, but a deliverer of your whole nation”

“Seems like everything”