Livet er ikke et lotteri, for i et lotteri er det når alt kommer til alt, alltid en vinner.

Kampene vi har kjempet, har gjort oss til dem vi er, og har [til]passet vår natur på en måte som gjør at ingen annen eksistens er mulig.

"Det er slik menneskeheten er."
"Guds største feiltrinn."
"Det tror jeg ikke."
"Ikke jeg heller - det er Gud som er menneskehetens største feiltrinn."

Han er fullstendig sprø [...]. Jeg mener ikke en sånn vanlig galning som dere har. Han ravet ikke rundt og skrek. [...] Men han er sprø som en kasse kaniner, uansett.

“You see, women are like fires, like flames. Some women are like candles, bright and friendly. Some are like single sparks, or embers, like fireflies for chasing on summer nights. Some are like campfires, all light and heat for a night and willing to be left after. Some women are like hearthfires, not much to look at, but underneath they are all warm red coal that burns a long, long while.”

The Lightning Tree (Patrick Rothfuss):
He sighed. He wasn't good at this.
So much was so easy. Glamour was second nature. It was just making folk see what they wanted to see. Fooling folk was simple as singing. Tricking folk and telling lies, it was like breathing.
But this? Convincing someone of the truth that they were too twisted to see? How could you even begin?
It was baffling. These creatures. They were fraught and frayed in their desire. A snake would never poison itself, but these folk made an art of it. They wrapped themselves in fears and wept at being blind. It was infuriating. It was enough to break a heart.

The Lightning Tree (Patrick Rothfuss):
He was bright as broken glass and sharp enough to cut himself.

´Nobody looks like what they really are on the inside, You don´t. I don´t. People are much more complicated than that. It´s true of everybody´ -Lettie

Some days simply lay on you like stones.

It led to the same thing. Upset. Folk finding keys. Folk opening doors. Strangers in her Underthing, shining their unseemly lights about. Their smoke. The braying of their voices. Tromping everywhere with their hard, uncaring boots. Looking at everything without a single thought of what a look entails. Poking things and messing them about without the slightest sense of what was proper.

Was it a proper gift for him? [...] But no. It didn't suit him. She should have known. He was not a one for fastening. For holding closed. Neither was he dark. Oh no. He was emberant. Incarnadine. He was bright with better bright beneath, like copper-gilded gold.

The Twelve was one of the rare changing places of the Underthing. It was wise enough to know itself, and brave enough to be itself, and wild enough to change itself while somehow staying altogether true.

The Call of The Wild

Bitter rage was his, but never blind rage.

The Call of The Wild

With the aurora borealis flaming coldly overhead, or the stars leaping in the frost dance, and the land numb and frozen under its pall of snow, this song of the huskies might have been the defiance of life, only it was pitched in minor key, with long-drawn wailings and half-sobs, and was more the pleading of life, the articulate travail of existence. It was an old song, old as the breed itself - one of the first songs of the younger world in a day when songs were sad.

To a Norwegian, a lack of spacious countryside equals urbanity - and the Norwegians are suspicious of any urban culture, especially foreign urban culture. It is, they think, a den of sinful behaviour where people sit around in cafés drinking coffee and achieving nothing, and, for Norwegians, achieving nothing is the biggest sin of all.

It's not that a Norwegian puts doubt and negativity aside; these thoughts simply do not enter his mind.

How Norwegians think others see them

Norwegians believe that no-one outside Scandinavia knows the difference between any of the Scandinavian countries. (They are usually right in this belief.) They are also convinced that every foreigner thinks that Norway is the capital of Sweden. (They are often right in this belief, too.)

Nationalism & Identity

Norwegians define themselves in simple terms: they are not Swedish. This simple definition comes from centuries of being dominated both politically and culturally by the Swedes, and millions of foreigners believing Norway to be the capital of Sweden (it's not, just in case you are unsure).
To show the world that they are Norwegian and definitely not Swedish, every Norwegian, at any moment in time, will be wearing an item of clothing with a Norwegian flag on it.

Jeg er Andrea.
Det betyr den djerve.
Det har alltid vært en Andrea i familien min.
Det er over hundre år siden den første Andrea ble født, men døde som et lite barn.
Så vidt fylt det første året, har jeg fått høre.
Det første barnet i familien som kom til verden etterpå, ble oppkalt etter Andrea.
Det er blitt en kjede i familien min.
Det skal alltid være en Andrea.
Om det er en velsignelse eller forbannelse, vet jeg ikke.

Å være ensom i byen føles mye mer ensomt enn å være ensom på landet.