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Det er bare i fiksjonen man kan være sikker i sin sak, virkeligheten er langt mer lunefull.

Skjønner du at det vonde også kan være vakkert?

[...] det jeg kaller å være optimistisk i gjerningsøyeblikket.

Lykken har de lagt bak seg, den kommer kun som blaff, en forbigående tilstand.

Det er alltid noe å skjule. Det er skader fra privatlivets fred.

She had everything she wanted; all she had to do was convince herself that she wanted very little.

For the arrogance and the futility of remaining alive, the ridiculousness of it, the stench of it, the unreasonableness of it.

Why does the mention of love, the memory of love, the memory of love lost, the promise of love, the end of love, the absence of love, the burning, burning need for love, need to love, result in so much violence?

The beginning and the end, the anticipation and despair, that's where the story lies, but the state of being in love, and in particular of being young and in love, is like listening to someone describe their parachute jump or their bizarre dream, the blurred photograph of a life-changing preformance, taken from too far away.

I could only hate him like that because I'd once loved him to the same degree.

I was sixteen years old; people wrote anthems about this time of life, and wasn't I entitled to joy and fun and irresponsibility, rather than fear and fury and boredom?

I'd made a religion of the past, resorting to it like alcohol.

The notion that these had been the best years of our lives suddenly seemed both plausible and tragic and I wished that school had always been like this, our arms around each other, filled with a kind of hooligan love

We were plastic, mutable and there was still time to experiment and alter our handwriting, our politics, the way we laughed or walked or sat in a chair, before we hardened and set.

He felt the old beat of pleasure inside his body, like watching a perfect goal, like the rustling movement of light through leaves, a phrase of music from the window of a passing car. Life offers up these moments of joy despite everything.

[...] feeling a strange sense of nostalgia for a moment that was already in the process of happening.

She belives Marianne lacks 'warmth', by which she means the ability to beg for love from people who hate her.

Marianne had the sense that her real life was happening without her, and she didn't know if she would ever find out where it was and become part of it.

Jeg husker det som det var i går, sier folk om minner de har. Med traumer er det annerledes. Det er ikke mulig å huske det, fordi det alltid føles som det skjer akkurat nå. Man kan bare ikke ta det inn over seg, sortere, differensiere. Inntrykkene er for rå, for ekstreme, for umiddelbare. Fragmenterte. Kaotiske.

De sa man ikke kunne vite hva lykke var om man aldri hadde kjent på smerten. Men kunne man vite hva smerte var, om man aldri hadde vært lykkelig?