Quotes from Tove Ditlevsen

Memory, that library of the soul from which I will draw knowledge and experience for the rest of my life.

Childhood is long and narrow like a coffin, and you can't get out of it on your own.

Med ingen kan man dele sine inderste tanker. Det vigtigste i verden er man alene med.

Meanwhile I am only twenty years old, and the days descend on me un-noticeably like dust, each one just like the rest.

Even though no one else cares for my poems, I have to write them because it dulls the sorrow and longing in my heart.

Wherever you turn, you run up against your childhood and hurt yourself because it's sharp-edged and hard, and stops only when it has torn you completely apart. It seems that everyone has their own and each is totally different. My brother's childhood is very noisy, for example, while mine is quiet and furtive and watchful. No one likes it and no one has any use for it.

That's the worst thing about grownups, I think – they can never admit that just once in their lives they've acted wrongly or irresponsibly. They're so quick to judge others, but they never hold Judgement Day for themselves.

There's a young girl in me who refuses to die.

Vil du afværge volden, må du elske dig selv så højt, at du ikke vil finde dig i den. (slutningen af ove Ditlevsens digt "Elsk dig selv")

Jeg vil gerne rette en særlig tak til Illums Bolighus, fordi de skabte så smagfuldt og fint gennemtænkt et hjem for en familie, der aldrig har eksisteret.

Hygge is a state of being you experience if you are at peace with yourself, your spouse, the tax authorities and your inner organs.

childhood falls silently to the bottom of my memory, that library of the soul from which I will draw knowledge and experience for the rest of my life.

I sink into a sweet melancholy and rhythmic waves of words stream through me again.

Being young is itself temporary, fragile, and ephemeral. You have to get through it - it has no other meaning.

Og til allersidst den helt nye, snigende bekymring for at livet skal glide forbi hende uden at hun får tag i det.

Time passed and my childhood grew thin and flat, paperlike. It was tired and threadbare, and in low moments it didn't look like it would last until I was grown up.

I always think there is a mystical understanding between the moon and the street, like between two sisters who have grown old together and no longer need any language to communicate with each other.

Jeg har skrevet hele mit liv og nærer en romantisk drøm om at dø midt i en sætning.

Hun gav sig omsider til at elske verden, men kun fordi den skulle udslettes sammen med hende.

Jeg har tit nok været bange for livet, men aldrig døden.

Bøgers skæbne er ligeså forunderlig som menneskers. Den er aldrig til at forudse.

Engang vil jeg skrive alle de ord ned, der gennemstrømmer mig. Engang skal andre mennesker læse dem i en bog og undre sig over, at en pige alligevel kunne blive digter.

Måske, siger han, er du selv indviklet, så bliver dit liv det også.

Det slog hende som noget dybt foruroligende, at der fandtes dobbelt så mange hænder som ansigter i verden.