Bokelskere.no

I knew I had an ugly life. I knew I was lonely and I was scared. I thought something might be wrong with my father, wrong in the worst possible way. I believed he might contain a pathology of the mind--an emptiness--a knocking hollow where his soul should have been. But I also knew that one day, I would grow up. One day, I would be twenty, or thirty, or forty, even fifty and sixty and seventy and eighty and maybe even one hundred years old. And all those years were mine, they belonged to nobody but me. So even if I was unhappy now, it could all change tomorrow. Maybe I didn't even need to jump off the cliff to experience that kind of freedom. Maybe the fact that I knew such a freedom existed in the world meant that I could someday find it.
Maybe, I thought, I don't need a father to be happy. Maybe, what you get from a father you can get somewhere else, from somebody else, later. Or maybe you can just work around what's missing, build the house of your life over the hole that is there and always will be.

Men én ting er å ha vært alene i hele sitt liv. En annen ting er det å ha vært sammen med noen og så bli alene. Da er man dobbelt så ensom. Men dobbelt lykkelig også. Forstå det den som kan.

I begynnelsen da jeg var liten hadde mor hatt rosa lepper og store blå øyne. Men nå var alt sluknet. Nå gikk hun rundt med vesker i krokodilleskinn. Jeg elsker krokodille, sa hun. Yndlingsordet hennes var koselig. Ikveld skal vi kose oss, sa hun. For et koselig TV-program. Da far hadde tjent ni og en halv million på et oppkjøp i Singapore var det koselig. Da han tapte dem igjen var det koselig det også.

"Det handler om å gå. Å begi seg av gårde til fots, ned den åpne veien; en romatisk øvelse som fører til en del harde erfaringer: å sove ute, gå seg vill, møte egne begrensninger og andre mennesker, natur og byer; drive gatelangs i Paris og Istanbul, krysse broer og grenser; gå inn i fremmede land, ukjente områder. Den gående er uten beskyttelse og hjem, uten hastighet og bestemte mål, han går for å komme nærmere det han ser og møter på reisen. Han vil leve et vilt og poetisk liv. Han finner sine egne ruter, men gjør også avstikkere langs sporene til kjente vandrere fra litteraturhistorien: Rousseau, Wordsworth, Hölderlin og Rimbaud; han leser dikerne og filosofene for å forsøke å lære seg den kusten det er å gå.

Jeg kjente feberen i bakhue igjen, nå som en kald redsel. Det var glassvegg mellom oss. Jeg kunne ikke nå dem. Jeg var utvist igjen. Ville ikke miste dem også.

I felt, that night, on that stage, under that skull, incredibly close to everything in the universe, but also extremely alone. I wondered, for the first time in my life, if life was worth all the work it took to live. What exactly made it worth it? What's so horrible about being dead forever, and not feeling anything, and not even dreaming? What's so great about feeling and dreaming?

You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.

"[...] You are a very fine person, mr. Baggins, and I am very fond of you; but you are only quite a little fellow in a wide world after all!"
"Thank goodness!" said Bilbo laughing, and handed him the tobacco-jar.

Jeg snakket mer enn jeg hadde gjort siden pappa døde, fortalte hele historien, om meg. Jeg tenkte at der går historien min, rett inn i ørene hans og blir i kroppen hans så lenge han vil. Og om han slipper den, har den i alle fall vært der.

jeg står planta
i en opparbeida rus
med nye sko
og uten snøring

tror at driten jeg har opplevd gir meg karakter

I like flaws and feel more comfortable around people who have them. I myself am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions.

I understood at once, I am not living, but actively dying. I am smoking, living unhealthily. I’m shutting down. I need to go the other way, inside. And it was so clear to me what I was doing. It was suddenly perfectly clear.

I understood, I need to write. Live here, in my words, and my head. I need to go inside, that’s all. No big, complicated, difficult thing. I just need to go in reverse. And not worry about what to write about, but just write. Or, if I’m going to worry about what to write, then do this worrying on paper, so at least I’m writing and will have a record of the anxiety

Like every child, I adored her. Until I formed a brain and got to know her.

...I don't think it's any more deceptive than wearing four-inch come-fuck-me pumps when one has no intention of ever fucking anybody

It’s a wonder I’m even alive. Sometimes I think that. I think that I can’t believe I haven’t killed myself. But there’s something in me that just keeps going on. I think it has something to do with tomorrow, that there is always one, and that everything can change when it comes.

My mother began to go crazy. Not in a 'Let's paint the kitchen red!' sort of way. But crazy in a 'gas oven, toothpaste sandwhich, I am God' sort of way.

I know exactly how that is. To love somebody who doesn’t deserve it. Because they are all you have. Because any attention is better than no attention. For exactly the same reason, it is sometimes satisfying to cut yourself and bleed. On those gray days where eight in the morning looks no different from noon and nothing has happened and nothing is going to happen and you are washing a glass in the sink and it breaks-accidentally-and punctures your skin. And then there is this shocking red, the brightest thing in the day, so vibrant it buzzes, this blood of yours. That is okay sometimes because at least you know you’re alive.

Think of your head as an unsafe neighborhood; don't go there alone.