Playwrights From Norway

"When I was a boy, I was not a believer at first, not yet, but then I changed my outlook and with it my writing also changed. When I start working, I start from scratch, I don't document or prepare myself by doing research, but I try to turn what I am doing into something else. For me, writing is listening and for me to find it interesting it must be a new experience every single time. It is my desire to createsomething that was not yet there."

"I wrote my first novel when I was 20, I am now 65, so I have been practising this exercise of creation for a very long time, but the exciting aspect of writing always remains the act itself. It is not re-reading the work, which counts, but the journey into the unknown.Suddenly I get the feeling that what I am writing is already ready somewhere, outside of me, and I am left only with the task of putting it on the page before it disappears. For an atheist such as I was, understanding this and trying to explain it meant admitting that there are invisible things. It was by acknowledging this reality that I began to believe in something I did not believe in: the existence of God."

"God is three in one, something that is impossible to explain. [...] For a while I attended Quakers: no sacraments, no formal dogma. There was a prayer room, furnished in the simplest way, and we sat there in a silent circle, seeking the inner light. What I call God and what is in each of us says something to each of us. These are extreme forms of mysticism and spirituality belonging to the Protestant root, but even starting from these positions one still ends up encountering the mystery of faith. A mystery that unites Quaker and Catholic religion, to which I have since converted."

"Erring soul of man — if thou wast indeed forced to err, it shall surely be accounted to thee for good on that great day when the Mighty One shall descend in the clouds to judge the living dead and the dead who are yet alive!"

"At leve er — krig med trolde i hjertets og hjernens hvælv. At digte, — det er at holde dommedag over sig selv."

"The great secret of power is never to will to do more than you can accomplish. The great secret of action and victory is to be capable of living your life without ideals. Such is the sum of the whole world's wisdom."

"I hold that man is in the right who is most closely in league with the future."

"The great task of our time is to blow up all existing institutions — to destroy."

"It is inexcusable for scientists to torture animals; let them make their experiments on journalists and politicians."

"Tvert imot!"

"I thank God that in the bath of Pain He purged my love. What strong compulsion drew Me on I knew not, till I saw in you The treasure I had blindly sought in vain. I praise Him, who our love has lifted thus To noble rank by sorrow, — licensed us To a triumphal progress, bade us sweep Thro' fen and forest to our castle-keep, A noble pair, astride on Pegasus!"

"I feel myself like God's lost prodigal; I left Him for the world's delusive charms. With mild reproof He wooed me to his arms; And when I come, He lights the vaulted hall, Prepares a banquet for the son restored, And makes His noblest creature my reward. From this time forth I'll never leave that Light, — But stand its armed defender in the fight; Nothing shall part us, and our life shall prove A song of glory to triumphant love!"

"Tho' Doubt's beleaguering forces hem us in, Yet Truth upon the Serpent's head shall trample. The cause of Love shall win —"

"Yes, Love shall win!"

"An unromantic poem I mean to make Of one who only lives for duty's sake."

"I go to scale the Future's possibilities! Farewell! God bless thee, bride of my life's dawn, Where'er I be, to nobler deed thou'lt wake me."

"Ikke tusend ord sig prenter, som én gernings spor."

"Tabets alt din vinding skabte — Evigt ejes kun det tabte!"

"Brand: Svar mig, Gud, i dødens slug! gælder ej et frelsens fnug mandeviljens quantum satis? [Skreden begraver ham; hele dalen fyldes.] En Røst: [Räber gennem tordenbragene] Han er deus caritatis!"

"Peer, du lyver!"

"Om jeg hamrer eller hamres, ligefuldt så skal der jamres!"

"Ja, tænke det; ønske det; ville det med; men gjøre det! Nej, det skjønner jeg ikke!"

"Hvad skal manden v’re? Sig selv, det er mit korte svar."

"Really to sin you have to be serious about it."

"I'm afraid for all those who'll have the bread snatched from their mouths by these machines. You are very fond, sir, of talking about the consideration we owe to the community; it seems to me, however, that the community has its duties too. What business has science and capitalism got, bringing all these new inventions into the works, before society has produced a generation educated up to using them!"

"Look into any man's heart you please, and you will always find, in every one, at least one black spot which he has to keep concealed."

"The spirit of truth and the spirit of freedom — these are the pillars of society."

"There can be no freedom or beauty about a home life that depends on borrowing and debt."

"Nora.Look here, Doctor Rank - you know you want to live."

"Rank.Certainly. However wretched I may feel, I want to prolong the agony as long as possible.""

"I don't know whether you find also in your part of the world that there are certain people who go zealously snuffing about to smell out moral corruption, and, as soon as they have found some, put the person concerned into some lucrative position where they can keep their eye on him. Healthy natures are left out in the cold."

"What's to become of the morally sound? Left out in the cold, I suppose. We must heal the sick."

"Many a man can save himself if he admits he's done wrong and takes his punishment."

"Jeg har en sånn umåtelig lyst til å si: død og pine."

"You don't get nothing for nothing in this life."

"There is a big black hat and it makes you invisible. Have you heard of that hat? You put it on and then no one can see you."

"The black, cold, icy water. Down and down, without end — if it would only end."

"But our home's been nothing but a playpen. I've been your doll-wife here, just as at home I was Papa's doll-child. And in turn the children have been my dolls. I thought it fun when you played with me, just as they thought it fun when I played with them. That's been our marriage, Torvald."

"If I'm ever to reach any understanding of myself and the things around me, I must learn to stand alone. That's why I can't stay here with you any longer."

"I have other duties equally sacred … Duties to myself."

"Helmer: First and foremost, you are a wife and mother. Nora: That I don't believe any more. I believe that first and foremost I am an individual, just as you are."

"To crave for happiness in this world is simply to be possessed by a spirit of revolt. What right have we to happiness?"

"I am half inclined to think we are all ghosts, Mr. Manders. It is not only what we have inherited from our fathers and mothers that exists again in us, but all sorts of old dead ideas and all kinds of old dead beliefs and things of that kind. They are not actually alive in us; but there they are dormant, all the same, and we can never be rid of them. Whenever I take up a newspaper and read it, I fancy I see ghosts creeping between the lines. There must be ghosts all over the world. They must be as countless as the grains of the sands, it seems to me. And we are so miserably afraid of the light, all of us."

"Mor, gi’ mig solen."

"A community is like a ship; everyone ought to be prepared to take the helm."

"There is one thing I esteem higher than that; and that is for a man to be self-reliant and sure of himself."

"I have already told you that what I want to speak about is the great discovery I have made lately - the discovery that all the sources of our moral life are poisoned and that the whole fabric of our civic community is founded on the pestiferous soil of falsehood."

"Flertallet har aldrig retten på sin side. Aldrig, siger jeg! Det er en af disse samfundslígne, som en fri, t’nkende mand må gíre oprír imod. Hvem er det, som udgír flertallet af beboerne i et land? Er det de kloge folk, eller er det dé dumme? Jeg taenker, vi får vaere enige om, at dumme mennesker er tilstede i en ganske forskraek kelig overv’ldende majoritet rundt omkring på den hele vide jord. Men det kan da vel, for fanden, aldrig i evighed vaere ret, at de dumme skal herske over de kloge!"

"Flertallet har magten — desværre —; men retten har det ikke. Retten har jeg og de andre få, de enkelte. Minoriteten har altid retten."

"The common people are nothing more than the raw material of which a People is made."