Tomas Tranströmer > Quotes

“In the middle of life, death comes
to take your measurements. The visit
is forgotten and life goes on. But the suit
is being sewn on the sly.”
― Tomas Tranströmer, The Deleted World

“I am carried in my shadow
like a violin
in its black case”
― Tomas Tranströmer, For the Living and the Dead

“Every person is a half-opened door
leading to a room for everyone.”
― Tomas Transtromer

“Tired of all who come with words, words but no language
I went to the snow-covered island.
The wild does not have words.
The unwritten pages spread themselves out in all directions!
I come across the marks of roe-deer's hooves in the snow.
Language, but no words.”
― Tomas Transtromer

“It is still beautiful to hear the heart beat
but often the shadow seems more real than the body.”
― Tomas Tranströmer

“Det finns i skogen en oväntad glänta som bara kan hittas av den som gått vilse.”
― Tomas Tranströmer

“الحقيقة موجودة على الأرض
لكن لا أحد يجرؤ على إلتقاطها
الحقيقة ممدّدة في الشارع
لا أحد يلتقطها !”
― Tomas Tranströmer

“I wrote so meagerly to you. But what I couldn't write
swelled and swelled like an old-fashioned airship
and drifted away at last through the night sky.”
― Tomas Tranströmer, The Great Enigma: New Collected Poems

“Thank you for this life! Still I miss the alternatives.”
― Tomas Tranströmer

“The calendar is full but the future is blank.”
― Tomas Tranströmer, The Deleted World

“الحياة الجميلة ، عربة هادئة مليئة بأناس غاضبين !”
― Tomas Tranströmer

“Death stoops over me.
I'm a problem in chess. He
has the solution.”
― Tomas Tranströmer, Haikudikter / Haiku Poems / 俳句

“A darker storm stands over the world. It puts its mouth to our soul and blows to get a tone. We are afraid the storm will blow us empty.”
― Tomas Tranströmer, The Deleted World

“I carry inside myself my earlier faces, as a tree contains its rings.”
― Tomas Tranströmer, Memories Look at Me

“Inom mig bär jag mina tidigare ansikten,
som ett träd har sina årsringar. Det är
summan av dem som är "jag". Spegeln
ser bara mitt senaste ansikte, jag känner av"
alla mina tidigare.”
― Tomas Tranströmer, Minderne ser mig

“Every abstract picture of the world is as impossible as a blueprint of a storm,”
― Tomas Tranströmer, The Great Enigma: New Collected Poems

“العابرين : زحمة أحذية لا تترك أثرا !”
― Tomas Tranströmer

“You drank some darkness
and became visible.”
― Tomas Tranströmer, The Half-Finished Heaven

“And the emptiness turns its face to us and whispers, 'I am not empty, I am open.”
― Tomas Tranströmer

“The gentle downward slope gets steeper
and imperceptibly becomes an abyss.”
― Tomas Tranströmer, New Collected Poems

“اليقظة قفزة مظلية من الحلم !”
― Tomas Tranströmer

“أنا شفاف
في أعماقي نص
كلماته مكتوبة بحبر خفي
تنبثق
لحظة يُمسك بالورقة فوق اللهيب !”
― Tomas Tranströmer

“No one decides where I go, least of all myself, though each step is where it must be.”
― Tomas Transtromer

“مذهل الشعور كيف تكبر قصيدتي فيما أتقلّص
إنها تكبر وتأخذ مكاني
تنقلب عليّ
وتطردني خارج العُش
!”
― Tomas Tranströmer

“But every person has their own encyclopedia written, which grows out from each soul, composed from birth onward, hundreds of thousands of pages pressing into each other and yet there’s air between them! Like trembling leaves in a forest. A book of contradictions. What’s in there is revised by the moment; the images touch themselves up, the words flicker. A wave washes through the entire text, followed by the next wave, and the next . . .”
― Tomas Tranströmer, The Great Enigma: New Collected Poems

“غالباً ما يحدثون ضجة
كى يخيفوا الوقت
بركض أسرع”
― Tomas Tranströmer

“Лежа, ще спя и аз. Но виждам тайнствени картини
и знаци, които сами се драскат зад моите клепачи
по зида на нощта. А в процепа между съня и будността
едно писмо голямо напразно прави опит да се пъхне.”
― Tomas Tranströmer, Есенен архипелаг

“Human beings sleep:
some can sleep peacefully, others have tense faces
as though in hard training for eternity.
They don't dare to let go even in sleep.
They wait like lowered gates while the mystery rolls past.”
― Tomas Tranströmer

“Trött på alla som kommer med ord, ord men inget språk
for jag till den snötäckta ön.
Det vilda har inga ord.
De oskrivna sidorna breder ut sig åt alla håll!
Jag stöter på spåren av rådjursklövar i snön.
Språk men inga ord.”
― Tomas Tranströmer

“I must be alone ten minutes in the morning and ten minutes in the evening. – Without a programme.”
― Tomas Tranströmer, New Collected Poems