Linda Olsson

“My aloneness had never bothered me; I hadn't even been aware of it. But now it overwhelmed me. The awareness washed over me with painful sharpness and deep grief. Now that I had company.”

“My life's memories take up space with no regard to when they happened, or to their actual time span. The memories of brief incidents occupy almost all time, while years of my life have left no tract. -- spoken by Astrid”

“It's often about the simple things, isn't it? Painting and photography are first about seeing, they say. Writing is about observing. Technique is secondary. Sometimes the simple is the most difficult.”

“But far-fetched things do happen. In fact, many people's entire lives are completely far-fetched. I think we are constantly surrounded by extraordinary possibilities. Whether we are aware of them or not, whether we choose to act on them or not, they are there. What is offered to us that we choose not to act upon falls by the wayside, and the road that is our life is littered with rejected, ignored and unnoticed opportunities, good and bad. Chance meetings and coincidences become extraordinary only when acted upon. Those that we allow to pass us by are gone forever. We never know where they night have taken us. I think they were never meant to happen. The potiental was there, but only for the briefest moment, before we consciously or unconsciously chose to ignore it.”

“Sometimes we are given exactly what we need. The precise people that you need the most come stumbling into your life. Sometimes you don't notice, and this is very sad. Sometimes you lose them again. This is sad too, but not as sad. Because what you have once had together you have forever.”

“Creo que quizás no existen esos momentos que definen y delimitan. Los principios y los finales son fluidos, largas cadenas de acontecimientos donde algunos eslabones parecen insignificantes y otros trascendentales, mas en realidad todos tienen el mismo peso. Lo que puede parecer un instante dramático y único, es tan sólo un vínculo entre lo que había antes y lo que viene después.”

“I could never be sure whether he would be there when I arrived. On my way through the forest I used to pass a large granite block where I would stop, draw my breath and close my fists with my thumbs inside, then close my eyes and whisper: 'Please, please, please let him be there today,' before continuing. If he wasn't, I felt it was because I had done wrong. That somehow I had to earn the right to such pleasure.”

“Perhaps we believe that anything is better than that which we all fear the most. Loneliness. Abandonment. But once you accept that fact that you have always been alone, and will always be, then your perspective can being to change. You can become aware of the small kindnesses, the little comforts. Be grateful for them. And with time you will understand that there is nothing to fear. And much to be grateful for.”

“I have stopped painting. I stand in front of the easel, brush in hand, but my mind is blank. It is as if I have been struck by a strange kind of blindness.”

“I think that perhaps there are no such defining moments at all. Beginnings and ends are fluid, long chains of events where some links seem so insignificant and others so very momentous, while in fact all have the same weight. What may appear as a single dramatic moment is just a link between what was before and what comes after.”

“Det korteste streif av ekte kjærlighet kan gi næring til et helt liv. Det må vi alltid huske.”

“But once you accept the fact that you have always been alone, and will always be, then your perspective can begin to change. You can become aware of the small kindnesses, the little comforts. Be grateful for them.”

“You can make yourself believe that someone can look into your eyes and read your mind. You can wish for it, or dread it. There is no cause for either. As long as you carry your words inside, they are safe. You are the sole keeper. But sometimes that is a terrible curse, Adam. Those unformed words take on an enormous weight. Sometimes the burden of them becomes more than you can carry. For me it did. I simply had to share it. And Angela came to me. (238)”

“She held me. I held her. We were one. (230)”

“Unlike film, real life rarely provides an opportunity for a retake," Ben said. "Perhaps that is why I like film so much. But I do think we have to give ourselves the same amount of leeway that we give others. Forgive ourselves. Have pity on ourselves. And perhaps even love ourselves a little." (197)”

“I lay down on the bed clasping the pictures and buried my face in the pillow in a vain attempt at silencing my sobs. But it was as if all my life's accumulated grief had finally found an outlet and was allowed to take its course. I screamed, I cried, until the grief became bearable. (174)”

“Now it is as if I remember my grief rather than experience it. I remember the pain I suffered as the memories washed over me where I sat on the deck that day. Now I have only the memories of my own feelings, not the feelings themselves. That day the feelings were still alive, the pain real. Now I look back and I can see every detail but I am not there, inside it. My own pain is now forever calcified. I carry it with me, but it is no longer alive. (10)”

“I can take one individual note out of the music I am trying to write at the moment, and ti could belong anywhere. Yet where it sits, where I have placed it, it follows what came before and leads to what comes after. Without it the whole would not be as it is. As the composer I must know each individual note in order to make the whole. Like the colors on an artist's palette, on their own the notes are absolute, yet when they are placed in a particular work, their individuality becomes one with the whole. They have to be chosen for what they are - red, yellow, blue - but with the effect of their combined potential in mind. It is necessary to know the parts in order to make up the whole. It applies to music, to art, and to life itself, I think. When you listen to the finished composition, or when you go about living your life, the individual components join to make a whole that can so easily be taken for granted. But it is not until you become aware of the parts that you can begin to understand the miracle. It took me almost a lifetime to start searching for the sounds, the notes that make my life's music. And it required a sacrifice so enormous that it did away with all that had made my life meaningful. But in the total silence that came afterward, I finally heard a first single note, and others slowly followed. (5)”

“I have never talked to anyone about that night. Ever...' she said. 'And now when I listen to my own words, I realise that they tell a different story from the one I have carried all these years.' The old woman closed her eyes. 'I think that if we can find the words, and if we can find someone to tell them to, then perhaps we can see things differently. But I had no words, and I had nobody.”

“My poor little childKarin BoyeMy poor child, so afraid of the dark, who has met ghosts of another kind,who always among those clad in whiteglimpses those with evil faces,now let me sing you gentle songs,from fright they free, from force and cramp.Of the evil they ask no repentance.Of the good they ask not for battle.See, you must know, that all that livesis deep inside of equal kind.Like trees and herbs it seeks to grow -pulled forward by its inner laws.And trees may fall and flowers wiltand branches break, their power lost,still the dream remains - awaits the call -in every living drop of sap. (205)”

“Parents have such formidable power. They can protect you from all the pain in the world. Or inflict the hardest pain of all. And as children we accept what we get. Perhaps we believe that anything is better than that which we all fear the most. Loneliness. Abandonment. But once you accept that fact that you have always been alone, and will always be, then your perspective can being to change. You can become aware of the small kindnesses, the little comforts. Be grateful for them. And with time you will understand that there is nothing to fear. And much to be grateful for. For me, the realization took a lifetime. Don't let it take you that long, Veronika. (189)”

“My life now consists of fragments where some are so blinding in their intensity that they make everything else indistinguishable. What shall I do with these glittering shards? There is no pattern; I can't make them fit. With each other, or with the whole that should be my life. It feels as if my existence was extinguished in a flash, and afterwards my universe became incomprehensible. Just shards and particles, which I carry with me wherever I go. They are sharp and they still hurt to touch. And they are so heavy. I know there is more - there are less intense fragments that I need to make it whole. I want to remember everything. But perhaps I need to give it more time. Allow myself some rest. Distance myself a little, to see if I can make out a pattern. And face the truth about what is really there.”

“...when I checked the other day, I found it - my strawberry patch - overgrown and hidden under weeds, but still there...like secrets, like memories. You can make yourself believe that they have been erased. But they are there, if you look closely. If you have a wish to uncover them.”

“I think that if we can find the words, and if we can find someone to tell them to, then perhaps we can see things differently. But I had no words, and I had nobody. - 153”

“Take risks! That is really what life is about. We must pursue our own happiness. Nobody has ever lived our lives; ther are no guidelines. Trust your instincts. Accept nothing but the best. But then also look for it carefully. Don't allow it to slip between your fingers. Sometimes, good things come to us in a such a quiet fashion. And nothing comes complete. It is what we make of whatever we encounter that determines the outcome. What we choose to see, what we choose to save. And what we choose to remember. Never forget that all the love in your life is there, inside you, always.”

“I think that if we just listen to ourselves we know what it is we have to do . . . . And I have come o think that however much it hurts, however hard it is, we have to listen. We have to live our lives.”