Ola Refsnes

“History shows that it is not only senseless and cruel, but also difficult to state who is a foreigner.”
― Claudio Magris, Danube: A Sentimental Journey from the Source to the Black Sea

“Between the desire
And the spasm,
Between the potency
And the existence,
Between the essence
And the descent,
Falls the Shadow.

This is the way the world ends.

from "The Hollow Man”
― T.S. Eliot, The Complete Poems and Plays

“The Danube is not blue, as Karl Isidore Beck calls it in the lines which suggested to Strauss the fetching, mendacious title of his waltz. The Danube is blond, 'a szöke Duna', as the Hungarians say, but even that 'blond' is a Magyar gallantry, or a French one, since in 1904 Gaston Lavergnolle called it Le Beau Danube blond. More down to earth, Jules Verne thought of entitling a novel Le Beau Danube jaune. Muddy yellow is the water that grows murky at the bottom of these [the Strudlhof] steps.”
― Claudio Magris, Danube: A Sentimental Journey from the Source to the Black Sea

“There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.”
― W. Somerset Maugham