Tomas Transtromer Quotes & Sayings

I am still the place where creation does some work on itself. — Tomas Transtromer

The storm puts its lips to the house and blows to make a sound. — Tomas Transtromer

A ship's engine far away on the water expands the summer-night horizon. Both joy and sorrow swell in the dew's magnifying glass. Without really knowing, we divine; our life has a sister ship, following quietly another route. While the sun blazes behind the islands. — Tomas Transtromer

The language marches in step with the executioners.
Therefore we must get a new language. — Tomas Transtromer

Thank you for this life! Still I miss the alternatives. — Tomas Transtromer

Every abstract picture of the world is as impossible as a blueprint of a storm, — Tomas Transtromer

I am carried in my shadow like a violin in its black case — Tomas Transtromer

A Place in the Forest On the way there a pair of startled wings clattered up, that was all. You go there alone. There is a tall building which consists entirely of cracks, a building which is perpetually tottering but can never collapse. The thousand-fold sun floats in through the cracks. In this play of light an inverted law of gravity prevails: the house is anchored in the sky and whatever falls, falls upwards. You can turn round there. There you are allowed to grieve. You can dare to see certain old truths which are otherwise kept packed, in storage. The roles I have, deep down, float up there, hang like the dried skulls in the ancestral cabin on some out-of-the-way Melanesian islet. A childlike aura round the gruesome trophies. So mild it is, in the forest. — Tomas Transtromer

The calendar is full but the future is blank. — Tomas Transtromer

We always feel younger than we are. I carry inside myself my earlier faces, as a tree contains its rings. The sum of them is me. The mirror sees only my latest face, while I know all my previous ones. — Tomas Transtromer

I walk slowly into myself, through a forest of empty suits of armor. — Tomas Transtromer

You live well.
The slum must be inside you. — Tomas Transtromer

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 Transtromer

Espresso The black coffee they serve out of doors among tables and chairs gaudy as insects. Precious distillations filled with the same strength as Yes and No. It's carried out from the gloomy kitchen and looks into the sun without blinking. In the daylight a dot of beneficent black that quickly flows into a pale customer. It's like the drops of black profoundness sometimes gathered up by the soul, giving a salutary push: Go! Inspiration to open your eyes. — Tomas Transtromer

The airy sky has taken its place leaning against the wall. It is like a prayer to what is empty And what is empty turns its face to us and whispers: 'I am not empty, I am open'. — Tomas Transtromer

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

Death stoops over me.
I'm a problem in chess. He
has the solution. — Tomas Transtromer

I carry inside myself my earlier faces, as a tree contains its rings. — Tomas Transtromer

It's always so early in here, before the crossroads, before the irrevocable choices. Thank you for this life! Still I miss the alternatives. The sketches, all of them, want to become real. — Tomas Transtromer

Society's dark hull drifts further and further away. It is this place - the place of our separation, our distinction - that much of his poetry occupies. — Tomas Transtromer

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

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 Transtromer

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 Transtromer

A person shows himself for an instant as in a photograph but clearer and in the background something which is bigger than his shadow. — 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

In the middle of life it happens that death comes
and takes your measurements. This visit
is forgotten and life goes on. But the suit is
sewn in the silence. — Tomas Transtromer

It is still beautiful to hear the heart beat
but often the shadow seems more real than the body. — Tomas Transtromer

Sometimes my life opened its eyes in the dark. A feeling as if crowds drew through the streets in blindness and anxiety on the way towards a miracle, while I invisibly remain standing. — Tomas Transtromer