Jon Fosse > Quotes

“...because if there was one thing he didn't like it was big words, they just lied and covered things up, those big words, they didn't let what really was live and breathe but just carried it off into something that wanted to be big, that's what he thought...”
― Jon Fosse, Aliss at the Fire

“and what the picture is in reality is this spirit, that’s what a picture really is, neither matter nor soul but both parts at the same time and together they make up what I think of as spirit, and maybe that’s why my good paintings, yes, all good paintings, have something to do with what I, what Christians, call The Holy Spirit, because all good art has this spirit, good pictures, good poems, good music, and what makes it good is not the material, not matter, and it’s not the content, the idea, the thought, no, what makes it good is just this unity of matter and form and soul that becomes spirit, that’s what culture is, probably, he says, it’s probably just one person being like another person that creates a culture, for example wearing a suit and tie, while what art is, yes, art is everyone just being like themselves, and totally themselves”
― Jon Fosse, Septology

“Can you be happy when you are unhappy?”
― Jon Fosse, Nightsongs

“...there inside the person is what will pass away and become one with what is invisible in everything...”
― Jon Fosse, The Other Name: Septology I-II

“...I just keep the mistakes and let them be wrong, because it’s often the mistakes that eventually lead to something right...”
― Jon Fosse, I Is Another: Septology III-V

“...what's beautiful in life turns out bad in a painting because it's like there's too much beauty, a good picture needs something bad in it in order to shine the way it should, it needs darkness in it...”
― Jon Fosse

“To compose poetry is about listening, ...not to contrive, it is, so to speak, about bringing forth something that already exists-this is why when one reads great poetry, when often gets this ‘I-new-all-of-this-already, I-just-didn’t-express-it’ feeling. Language listens to itself.”
― Jon Fosse

“...one of the most important things when it comes to painting is being able to stop at the right time, to know when a picture is saying what it can say, if you keep going too long then more often than not the picture’ll be ruined...”
― Jon Fosse, I Is Another: Septology III-V

“God is so far away that no one can say anything about him and that’s why all ideas about God are wrong, and at the same time he is so close that we almost can’t notice him, because he is the foundation in a person, or the abyss, you can call it whatever you want,”
― Jon Fosse, A New Name: Septology VI-VII

“...everyone has a deep longing inside them, we always always long for something and we believe that what we long for is this or that, this person or that person, this thing or that thing, but actually we’re longing for God, because the human being is a continuous prayer, a person is a prayer through his or her longing...”
― Jon Fosse, I Is Another: Septology III-V

“...it’s almost like a language, because every language gives you access to its share of reality, and the different religions are different languages that can each have its truth, and its lack of truth, I think and it’s foolish to think that God is anything defined, anything you can say something about...”
― Jon Fosse

“Kjærleiken er den ande
som gjer at vi finst til
Kjærleiken er den vande
som vil og ikkje vil

Kjærleiken er ei lykke
og han er sorga di,
han går der bak eit stykke
og så går han forbi

Kjærleiken er som lyset,
det kjem og det forsvinn
Kjærleiken er det gyset
som seier tap og vinn”
― Jon Fosse

“...what's beautiful in life turns out bad in a painting because it's like there's too much beauty, a good picture needs something bad in it in order to shine the way it should, it needs darkness in it...”
― Jon Fosse”
― Jon Fosse, The Other Name: Septology I-II

“Eg forstår så lite. Og etter som åra går, så forstår eg mindre og mindre. Det er sant. Men også det motsette er sant, at eg etter som åra går, forstår meir og meir. Ja, det er også sant at eg etter som åra går, forstår veldig mykje, nesten skremmande mykje. Eg kan nesten bli matt av kor lite eg forstår og nesten bli skremd av kor mykje eg forstår.”
― Jon Fosse, Essay

“Dine augo dei opnar mitt hjarta
og seier at livet finst til
Dine augo dei opnar mitt hjarta
og gjer at eg nok ein gong vil”
― Jon Fosse

“I think, and, I think, it’s the same with the writing I like to read, what matters isn’t what it literally says about this or that, it’s something else, something that silently speaks in and behind the lines and sentences, but, yes, this is what happened, the pitctures I keep in the attic are only some of the bigger pictures because Åsleik chose all of the truly good smaller pictures and took them to give to Sister, yes, it’s a bit ridiculous, but he must see the same way I do, or pretty close, anyway there are lots of pictures Åsleik picked out and gave to Sister that I really wish I had in my own collection up in the attic, not all the ones he’s”
― Jon Fosse, The Other Name: Septology I-II

“Ingen såg at raset gjekk, for det rasa så langsamt, det rasa ikkje dag for dag, ikkje eingong time for time, ikkje minutt for minutt, men det rasa, heile tida rasa det, for det var eit ras, det måtte jo vera eit ras, for kva anna kunne det vera?”
― Jon Fosse, Levande stein

“One thing is certain, I have never written to express myself, as they say, but rather to get away from myself.”
― Jon Fosse, A Silent Language: The Nobel Lecture

“And I stay where I’m standing. And I look up and I see that the stars aren’t visible anymore, there are clouds covering the stars and everything has gotten much darker. Now the moon is half covered by clouds, I see, and I see clouds moving, covering the whole moon, and then it’s totally dark, and I can barely see my mother and father anymore. They’ve disappeared into the darkness, they’re both totally covered in darkness now. And I’m alone in the darkness again, exactly like I was before. I can’t see anything. And my parents, they were here just now, I saw them, I did. They were here. But where did they go. Well obviously they just disappeared into the darkness, they’re not visible now the way nothing is visible when it gets dark enough, black enough.”
― Jon Fosse, A Shining

“God hides in silence, I think, and also in love,”
― Jon Fosse, A New Name: Septology VI-VII

“...a person comes from God and goes back to God, I think, for the body is conceived and born, it grows and declines, it dies and vanishes, but the spirit is a unity of body and soul, the way form and content are an invisible unity in a good picture...”
― Jon Fosse, I Is Another: Septology III-V

“I take another look at the picture with the two lines crossing, both in impasto as they put it, and the paint has run a little and where the lines cross the colours have turned such a strange colour, a beautiful colour, with no name, they usually don’t have names because obviously there can’t be names for all the countless colours in the world,”
― Jon Fosse, The Other Name: Septology I-II

“... he walks into the hall and the old walls there settle into place all around him and say something to him, the same way they always have, he thinks, it's always like that, whether he notices it and thinks about it or not the walls are there, and it is as if silent voices are speaking from them, as if a big tongue is there in the walls and this tongue is saying something that can never be said with words ...”
― Jon Fosse, Aliss at the Fire

“it's almost like a language, because every language gives you access to its share of reality”
― Jon Fosse, I Is Another: Septology III-V

“Ahora tú también estás muerto, Johannes, dice Peter Te moriste esta mañana, dice Y como yo era tu mejor amigo, me enviaron a recogerte, dice Pero ¿por qué hemos pescado cangrejos? dice Johannes Tenías que desacostumbrarte a la vida, algo teníamos que hacer, dice Peter Conque es así, dice Johannes Así es, dice Peter”
― Jon Fosse, Morgon og kveld

“Vart ska vi fara? säger Johannes
Nej nu frågar du som om du fortfarande var vid liv, säger Peter
Inte till någon plats? säger Johannes
Nej dit vi nu ska, det är inte någon plats, och därför har den heller inte något namn, säger Peter
Är det farligt? säger Johannes
Farligt, nej, säger Peter
Farligt är ett ord, det finns inga ord där, säger Peter
Gör det ont? säger Johannes
Det finns inte kroppar där, så ont finns inte, säger Peter
Men själen, gör det ont i själen där? säger Johannes”
― Jon Fosse, Morgon og kveld

“he almost always gets something out of modern so-called incomprehensible poetry, not that he understands it either, in the usual way, but he does kind of understand it, in a different way, yes, it's like it's something you have to understand with something other than intelligence, or your mind(...) It's like those poems are incomprehensible the same way life id, he says”
― Jon Fosse, Septology

“Vidme sees before him all the despairing people who have tried to give meaning to their lives by saying that it is God’s will that this or that happens, because the darkness has always been heavy, the wind hard, love has always, always been somewhere between killing and caring, the ocean has always been hard, births even harder, and above it all there has always been an enormous sky”
― Jon Fosse, Melancholie I.

“Etter å ha gått på dans i forskjellige ungdomshus i nokre år og stort sett dansa åleine, fann eg ein gong ut, det må ha vore seint på kvelden, og einkvan må nok ha gitt meg tilstrekkeleg å drikke, at eg skulle be ei jente opp til dans.”
― Jon Fosse, Prosa frå ein oppvekst

“what I want to show to other people has to do with light, or with darkness, it has to do with the shining darkness full as it is of nothingness, yes, it’s possible to think that way, to use such words,”
― Jon Fosse, The Other Name: Septology I-II