Solstad Quotes & Sayings

Having oscillated all his life between the torments of a superficial loitering and the horrors of disinterested endeavour, he finds himself at last in a situation where to do nothing exclusively would be an act of the highest value, and significance. — Samuel Beckett

And so, when the chips are down, I must say, though not without a sense of repugnance, that if you wish to show your belief in democracy, you also have to do so when you are in the minority, convinced both intellectually and, not least, in your innermost self, that the majority, in the name of democracy, is crushing everything you stand for and that means something to you, indeed, all that gives you the strength to endure, well, that gives a kind of meaning to your life, something that transcends your own fortuitous lot, one might say. When the heralds of democracy roar, triumphantly bawling out their vulgar victories day after day so that it really makes you suffer, as in my own case, you still have to accept it; I will not let anything else be said about me, he thought. — Dag Solstad

I think that I have more diplomacy than you give me credit for."
"My friend," besought Poirot, "I implore you, do not enrage yourself! Your help has been of the most invaluable. It is but the extremely beautiful nature that you have, which made me pause."
"Well," I grumbled, a little mollified. "I still think you might have given me a hint. — Agatha Christie

I'm close to being a vegan, but I'm not one, technically. I don't eat eggs, or nearly any dairy - no cheese or milk. I do eat honey, and a piece of milk chocolate here and there. It's never really been that hard for me. I've never had any desire to eat meat. In fact, when I was a kid I would have a really difficult time eating meat at all. It had to be the perfect bite, with no fat or gristle or bone or anything like that. I don't judge people who eat meat - that's not for me to say - but the whole thing just sort of bums me out. — Tobey Maguire

Just keep waking up,
dragging yourself out of bed.
It will get better. — Tyler Knott Gregson

Our relationship to the past is marked by deep indifference, even if we do say something to the contrary, even if we mean what we say when we say it is a matter of the greatest significance. Because it is a matter of the greatest significance, yet nevertheless we feel bound to it by a sense of duty. — Dag Solstad

Social-impact partnerships address our moral responsibilities to ensure that social programs actually improve recipients' lives, and to do so in a fiscally prudent manner. — Todd Young

The movie I've watched a million times is 'A Face in the Crowd,' directed by Elia Kazan, starring Andy Griffith and Patricia Neal. I first saw this movie, I guess I was in my early 20s. I'd never heard of it, and somebody told me about it, and I watched it and was just completely jaw-droppingly shocked at how current it was. — Callie Khouri

for a brief moment it is his fate, and nothing else, that is frozen into immobility on the stage. The moment of the minor figure. Both before and after this he remains the same, the man who reels off those smart lines, one of which has acquired an immortal status in Norwegian literature: 'If you take the life-lie away from an average person, you take away his happiness as well. — Dag Solstad

The more careless, the more modish. — Jonathan Swift

Sociobiology, E. O. Wilson — Frans De Waal

He couldn't imagine using the word 'rewarding' about a work of art - for instance that such and such a book has given me so much, taught me so much, etc etc. - but thought solely that it enlightened him, made him see, cynically and withough false expectations, so that he felt he was alive. — Dag Solstad

I ain't seen a herd the size of it, not even when the Scots drive the beeves down from Scotland to London. — Bernard Cornwell

And as robbers prove sometimes gallant soldiers, so soldiers often prove brave robbers, so near an alliance there is between those two sorts of life. — Thomas More

One of Solstad's regular "connecting" statements in his narrative is: "Vi skal komme tilbakke til . . . " - "We shall come to-back to . . . — John Freeman

I think girls who looked like me or were from the poorer area where I'm from in Australia, like you don't think "Oh, I'm going to be a movie star." You just didn't think that would happen to girls like me where I'm from. — Rebel Wilson