“Ni bygger utifrån , vi byggs inifrån och in. Ni bygger med er själva som stenar och faller sönder utifrån och in. Vi bygger inifrån som träd, och det växer ut broar mellan oss som inte är död materia och dött tvång. Från oss går det levande ut. I er går det livlösa in, sid 75”
― Karin Boye, quote from Kallocain
“And is this not the very reason for the establishment of the State? If there were cause and reason for confidence among individuals, the State would never have come into existence. The sacred and essential foundation for the State is our mutual and well-founded suspicion of each other. Anyone questioning this foundation throws suspicion upon the State.”
― Karin Boye, quote from Kallocain
“Vad jag vet är, att av sjuka föräldrar och sjuka lärare fostras ännu sjukare barn, tills det sjuka har blivit norm och det friska en skräckbild. Av ensamma föds ännu ensammare, av rädda ännu räddare (s. 144)”
― Karin Boye, quote from Kallocain
“Alla är inte sanna nog för att höra sanningen, det är det sorgliga. Den kunde vara en bro mellan människa och människa - så länge den är frivillig, ja - så länge den ges som en gåva och tas emot som en gåva. Är det inte underligt att allting mister sitt värde så fort det upphör att vara en gåva - till och med sanningen?”
― Karin Boye, quote from Kallocain
“Vi har gått mot allt strängare övervakning - och den har inte gjort oss säkrare, som vi hoppades, utan ängsligare. Med vår skräck växer också impulsen att så omkring oss. Är det inte så: då ett vilt djur känner sig hotat och inte ser någon utväg att fly, går den till anfall. Då skräcken smyger sig över oss, finns det inget annat att göra än att hugga först. Det är svårt, när vi inte ens vet vartåt vi ska hugga... Men bättre förekomma en förekommas ( s. 105)”
― Karin Boye, quote from Kallocain
“Min tunga hade alltid varit ett smidigt och pålitligt verktyg, men nu vägrade den att göra tjänst mer. Alldeles som jag nyss hade hade lyssnat för första gången i mitt liv, visste jag, att om jag nu vill tala, måste det vara på ett nytt sätt, som jag ännu inte var mogen för. De lager av mig själv, som nu skulle komma till tals, hade väl aldrig förr format några ord (s. 138).”
― Karin Boye, quote from Kallocain
“Yo odio a las mujeres. Te seducen, ¿verdad?, pero luego no te aguantan. Son falsas. Las odio a todas.”
― Karin Boye, quote from Kallocain
“Ті, кому бракує щирості, не можуть сприймати правду.”
― Karin Boye, quote from Kallocain
Karin Boye
Born place: in Gothenburg, Sweden
Born date October 26, 1900
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“It's not true that you were the good child. Not a good child at all. You were scared of rejection, so you made yourself a convenient child for your parents to have around."
"And your good parents - well, that is a lie as well. Not good parents at all, always looking over their shoulders, afraid of what people might be saying behind their backs. You think that liars who flock together never betray each other? Oh, you will betray your parents. And your parents will betray you. It is the way of all flesh. We tell each other our lies and the betrayed betrays the betrayer.”
― Fuyumi Ono, quote from The Twelve Kingdoms: Sea of Shadow
“There is always, for some reason, an element of sadness mingled with my thoughts of human happiness, and, on this occasion, at the sight of a happy man I was overcome by an oppressive feeling that was close upon despair. It was particularly oppressive at night. A bed was made up for me in the room next to my brother’s bedroom, and I could hear that he was awake, and that he kept getting up and going to the plate of gooseberries and taking one. I reflected how many satisfied, happy people there really are! ‘What a suffocating force it is! You look at life: the insolence and idleness of the strong, the ignorance and brutishness of the weak, incredible poverty all about us, overcrowding, degeneration, drunkenness, hypocrisy, lying... Yet all is calm and stillness in the houses and in the streets; of the fifty thousand living in a town, there is not one who would cry out, who would give vent to his indignation aloud. We see the people going to market for provisions, eating by day, sleeping by night, talking their silly nonsense, getting married, growing old, serenely escorting their dead to the cemetery; but we do not see and we do not hear those who suffer, and what is terrible in life goes on somewhere behind the scenes... Everything is quiet and peaceful, and nothing protests but mute statistics: so many people gone out of their minds, so many gallons of vodka drunk, so many children dead from malnutrition... And this order of things is evidently necessary; evidently the happy man only feels at ease because the unhappy bear their burdens in silence, and without that silence happiness would be impossible. It’s a case of general hypnotism. There ought to be behind the door of every happy, contented man some one standing with a hammer continually reminding him with a tap that there are unhappy people; that however happy he may be, life will show him her laws sooner or later, trouble will come for him—disease, poverty, losses, and no one will see or hear, just as now he neither sees nor hears others. But there is no man with a hammer; the happy man lives at his ease, and trivial daily cares faintly agitate him like the wind in the aspen-tree—and all goes well.”
― Anton Chekhov, quote from Racconti
“Your shelled bed I remember.
Father, this thick air is murderous.
I would breathe water.”
― Sylvia Plath, quote from Plath: Poems
“Intoxicated with her success and his awed eyes, and with the way the wind rushed by and flicked delicate strands of saliva across her cheeks, Will spread out her arms, spun in a pirouette. Shumba chose that moment to stumble over a rabbit hole and with a terrific crash, that sounded and resounded for miles and miles of flei, Will fell into the long grass.”
― Katherine Rundell, quote from The Girl Savage
“And this is where I'll end, before I know what happens next.”
― Shannon Hale, quote from Dangerous
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The Darkest Surrende...BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
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