Noam’s Reviews > Septology > Status Update

'I think, that because pictures have a spirit painting can be compared to praying, that a picture is a prayer, I think, that the pictures I paint are prayer and confession and penance all at once' p.632

'I want a silence to come down over me like snow and cover me, yes, I want a silence to come falling down over everything that exists, and also me, yes, over me, yes, let a silence snow down and cover me, make me invisible, make everything invisible, make everything go away, I think and all these thoughts will go away, all the pictures I have, all the pictures gathered up in my memory tormenting me' p.614

'I was sitting in my chair he sat down in the empty chair next to me and I was suddenly shocked and afraid, yes, it was like I was suddenly jealous and I told Åsleik he had to get up
Get up. I said
and he stood up right away and he looked at me taken aback
I didn't know, he said
and I felt ashamed of myself
Sorry, I said
I didn't know, he said again
No of course, I say
But that's Ales's chair, I say' p.560

'the innermost picture inside me that all the pictures I've tried to paint are attempting to look like, this innermost picture, that's a kind of soul and a kind of body in one, yes, that's my spirit, what I call spirit, it goes back to God and becomes part of God at the same time as it stays itself, I think' p.497

'now he wants to paint just his own pictures, because his head is full of pictures, it's a real torment, yes, pictures get lodged in his head all the time, not as things that have happened but like a kind of photograph, taken right there, right then, and he can kind of flip from one of the pictures in his head to another, it's like he has a photo album in his head and the strangest things are there as pictures' p.387

'now he wants to paint just his own pictures, because his head is full of pictures, it's a real torment, yes, pictures get lodged in his head all the time, not as things that have happened but like a kind of photograph, taken right there, right then, and he can kind of flip from one of the pictures in his head to another, it's like he has a photo album in his head and the strangest things are there as pictures' p.387

'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' p.310

'and there's The Rowboat and The Fjord and everything, Asle thinks and Sister stops
But, she says
Yes, he says
Mother says, she says' p.271

'and then I go into the playground and stop and stand there and look at the snow angels and they are so beautiful, so beautiful that if I tried to paint them it would turn out to be a bad painting, compared to the sight of the snow angels, I think, because that's how it is, that's how it almost always is, what's beautiful in life turns out bad in a painting because it's like there's too much beauty' p.128

'and I think that the only thing I want to do on Christmas Eve is make the day disappear, paint it away, and that's what I do, and I'd rather not eat anything on Christmas Eve either, I just fast, as they call it, and paint, I paint from early in the morning through the whole time I'm awake until night,' p.91-92